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

It's CD that's dead. Vinyl sales are up each year for the last ten years mostly. True, that is from a tiny number, but numbers are good enough that entrants are making more and more tables. B&M retailers that never had vinyl are adding it, and installed base of those with tables is growing every year. Even if/when the fad with hipster posers who don't listen much dies, LPs will continue on for another generation. 
CDs on the other hand will be totally gone in 5 years. Streaming and digital downloads will just kill it. There will be nothing to miss. Cheers,
Spencer

I think you're missing my point.  Once CDs disappear there will be no new records either.   Marketing simply will cut them both off.  Not enough profit margin left in manufacturing physical product when most all of the world is digital.  Right now, physical albums (CDs & records) only amount to a combined total of a little over 25% of the total market.
So, my point is instead of trying to downgrade each other's mode of listening ("Your records suck."  "No, your CDs suck.") we dinosaurs ought to be somewhat encouraging of each other's preferences.
Unfortunately, My guess is in five to ten years both CDs and vinyl, along with albums in general, will have almost completely disappeared.  

@toolbox149 to paraphrase our beloved President: convenience, convenience, convenience!  In early 90-ies I remember asking my friends why would they buy cassettes if for the same $$ they could get CD or LP and make a better cassette copy at home. They all had cassette decks. The answer was the same as today: convenience. As is today, not many of them listened to music other than "background"   This, and constant search for New music gets us all these sad numbers. 

I have a friend that streams all her music. After hearing the same music on LP at my house, she tells me that she really regrets having sold her LPs and turntable...

2016 was the first year that LP sales outsold streaming in the UK...
from the Guardian UK:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/dec/06/tables-turned-as-vinyl-records-outsell-digital-in-uk-f...

I don’t see why the death of the CD would kill vinyl. They’re definitely serving different non audiophile customer bases and it’s the inconvenience of vinyl that makes it legit. CDs are more convenient but now files are even more so. That’s the problem for CDs.