Well, I can chime in- I started this thread. Yes, I love vinyl, no, snap crackle and pop only works for cereal (but a clean record helps) and I bought my VPI cleaning machine second hand for $325
Your "eureka" digital moment
I got into digital in 86 or 87. Very conveniant but I never gave up on vinyl. Digital was ok but something did not "make sense" musically. Until 2001 when I bought a second hand meridian 508.24. Then digital made sense. No, not a perfect player (dynamics were polite) but oh what a listenable player. That was when I finally got digital.