When and how did you, if at all, realize vinyl is better?

You will realize vinyl is better if you like snaps, crackles and pops.

In many cases ticks and pops are actually artifacts of the phono section; while the actual tick or pop is on the LP surface, if the phono section is unstable it will exacerbate the tick and make it a lot louder than it really is on the LP. IOW phono preamp design has a huge effect on this and its not a bandwidth thing.

 If you only listen to contemporary music, I doubt you're better off trying to hear it all in vinyl. No point in adding a layer of distance from the original digital recording.

The assumption here is that all modern music is digital and all mastered the same. Its not.

When mastering an LP from a digital source, the LP usually does not employ as much compression since there is no expectation that the LP will be played in a car. Further, the mastering house if often working with the master file that has far less processing applied than the file intended for digital media. So even though using a digital source file it can still sound better.

But analog tape is seeing a comeback too, and pro analog multitrack machines are going for a lot more now than just 5 years ago as demand has increased. IOW there are new LPs coming out now that are recorded analog.

Add to that: vinyl of new titles is a lot easier to find these days!

I have had more than the last 30 years to compare, no ambiguity on my part

Same with me. Perhaps I just got lucky with my choice of components.

I tried to listen to LPs on a few occasions, at some dealers setup. And these setups were comparable, dollar-wise, to the digital rig in the same system, or my system. When you compare the dollar-wise investment in analog and digital, I found the digital to be so much more better than analog. You really have to spend quite a bit of money if you have to get at the same level or surpass that level, in analog. I also head great sounding analog rigs, but they cost at least 4-5 times the digital equipment that dealer had. And at that level, the cables, power distribution, etc is also of higher quality. So not sure if it was just the analog player that made the difference.
And with 2 kids, their activities, etc, it would be a pain to maintain analog.

 The assumption here is that all modern music is digital and all mastered the same. Its not.

@atmasphere great point! thanks

he's right -- dragging a rock across bumpy plastic is not ideal tho a LOT of R&D has gone into it and made it much better than when it started

worse, the rock degrades the plastic every time

a well-recorded CD sounds better and can be replayed millions of times with no degradation - try listening some time

not to mention that high bit rate/depth delivery could be better than a CD

best thing to do is replace your speakers

if your speakers already cost over $35,000 then build a new listening room, and attach a house to it