One set of responses to your questions would be:
1. No, you shouldn't need to spend anywhere near the cost of your EMM gear to equal or better that sound with a vinyl rig.
2. Maybe.
3. It doesn't matter if the music and the recording quality is fantastic.
4. Yes, but so what.
5. Shouldn't happen if you take proper care with a proper rig.
6. Should be minimal, at worst.
7. You shouldn't need to spend anywhere near that amount on a vinyl rig to equal or better your digital front end.
Personally, I wrestled with this for several years and finally decided that 1) I'll never know what I think without trying it myself, and 2) that the real decision-driver is the quality and availability of releases you want. I have no real interest in shopping garage sales hoping to find some real finds, but there is a LOT of really great versions of new vinyl coming out. It's somewhere between kind of pricey and very pricey, but if it's really exceptional it will be both stuff I really want to listen to and substantially better than I can hear it from a digital source.
Six months into it, I may decide that it's not worth it for many of the reasons you list above, but if the reasoning I'm using to try it out holds up, then it will be worth it and will mitigate many of your concerns.
1. No, you shouldn't need to spend anywhere near the cost of your EMM gear to equal or better that sound with a vinyl rig.
2. Maybe.
3. It doesn't matter if the music and the recording quality is fantastic.
4. Yes, but so what.
5. Shouldn't happen if you take proper care with a proper rig.
6. Should be minimal, at worst.
7. You shouldn't need to spend anywhere near that amount on a vinyl rig to equal or better your digital front end.
Personally, I wrestled with this for several years and finally decided that 1) I'll never know what I think without trying it myself, and 2) that the real decision-driver is the quality and availability of releases you want. I have no real interest in shopping garage sales hoping to find some real finds, but there is a LOT of really great versions of new vinyl coming out. It's somewhere between kind of pricey and very pricey, but if it's really exceptional it will be both stuff I really want to listen to and substantially better than I can hear it from a digital source.
Six months into it, I may decide that it's not worth it for many of the reasons you list above, but if the reasoning I'm using to try it out holds up, then it will be worth it and will mitigate many of your concerns.