'80s vinyl sound like CDs?

This is primarily for those of us who agree that vinyl sounds better than CD, and is not meant to restart the vinyl vs CD debate. Is it just me, or have others noted that a lot of the vinyl releases from the mid to late '80s sound more like CDs than traditional vinyl? The soul that usually comes through with vinyl is missing, and to my ear sounds like a high quality (but sterile) CD. I don't think it is just the DDA recording chain, because today's digitally recorded vinyl sounds much better. Is it maybe because the recording engineers were still figuring out how to get the best sound out of digital, or did they use lower sampling rates in the 80s?