Analog or Digital and why?

Analog for recordings made before 1981, digital for after.

I’ll take issue with one thing the OP said-  “A modest system can be an easy 20 grand”

a modest vinyl front end is far less than $20,000. 
I’d argue that a pretty credible vinyl front end can be put together for $2,000

I travel full time in my motor home and I shudder to think what the equivalent weight of my 2,900 digital (FLAC) albums would be in vinyl form; 1s and 0s don’t weigh much! Not to mention the impossible physical storage!  Plus I rarely listen to an album all the way through and more often queue up several shuffled albums.  

There is a trend towards ever higher sampling rates. Does this mean the best sampling rate is infinite? Is analog the infinite sampling rate digital is striving for? Just askin'. Not implying you can't listen to digital. Blissfully listening now to an analog recording delivered on digital.

(Bach's Mass conducted by Karl Richter on Archiv Blu Ray audio. The pinnacle of Western Civilization.) 

I read something like  "analog will be gone in a couple of decades"

I had to laugh, Vinyl has already gone over a century, one score, and a few.. Feel like Abraham Lincoln.

Regards