excellent post, Tim saved me a lot of trouble as I have been tied up the last couple of days and wanted to make these same points. Odds are you made them in a more cogent manner than I would have.
I was so ready to drop lps when CDs came out. I was just so frustrated at the poor quality of the vinyl, the constant vigilance required to prevent deterioration of the record, and a host of other factors. 15 seconds of CD listening, to Colin Davis conducting Debussy Image For Orchestra, converted me for life. Even on a 14 bit CDP, which I used for the first 12 years or so of the format until the laser bagged it, had such an expanded dynamic range and such quieter backgrounds that I was hooked. At the same time my lps were trashed in a house flood, and lps were disapearing from shops in the mid 80s, so the switch was painless.
Around 2000 used lp stores began springing up. The one part of vinyl that I really missed was reading the liner notes on lps of classical albums while I shopped. I began hanging out in the stores for that reason and I began to realize that many of my favorite lps had not bee ndigitalized at that time, and wouldn't it be fun to be able to play them? I bought the low end Project player of the day and the nreunited with a handful of albums. Then the vinyl propaganda, sponsored by the likes of Fremer and Dudley began, and I upgraded my vinyl font end, although CDs were still my preferred source.
3 years ago I began to realize that ll of the lps that hadn't been digitalized around 2000 now were, either in CDs or cD quality downloads and occasionally in high resolution. Every single time I compared the digital version to one of the lps the digital one, and there was no speed instability, surface noise, static electricity, etc.
So I sold my vinyl rig, which by now consisted of th Clearaudio Concept mc tt and cartridge, and a Musical Surroundings Phono Pre Amp. I had paid about $2500 for the vinyl front end and got about 90% of back, thanks to the vinyl revival. I used the proceeds to buy a Bluesound Vault2 and node2 and have been very happy.
I think that for people who have large lp collections, left over from the heyday of the lp, or alternatively have inherited one (as we boomers age, a more frequent event), and who let their lp playback system elapse, it makes sense to want to buy a tt and be able to enjoy the records. If someone is coming to it from having no physical media at all, I don't understand why they would want to go the vinyl route, but given the pro vinyl propaganda out there, perhaps that is the reason.