I, for one, have never had vinyl out of my system, but I'm an old f@rt and had a rather large collection of LPs to begin with. I'd be the first to admit, though, that it is indeed a pain. Unless you're willing to spend a fair amount of time with setup, maintenance, and cleaning, don't do it - really. And yes, new vinyl can get comparatively expensive.
Do you have a friend who owns a good turntable setup? Seems to me that a great way to compare would be to beg/borrow/purchase both the LPs and CDs of the same material and compare. Sure, you might say "it's not for me" and have a few unneeded LPs on your hands, but compare that with the cost of making the financial commitment of table, arm, and cartridge and it starts to look pretty cheap. You can always sell the things for 80% of what you paid for them. We LP lovers are suckers for "played once" ads :-)
Do you have a friend who owns a good turntable setup? Seems to me that a great way to compare would be to beg/borrow/purchase both the LPs and CDs of the same material and compare. Sure, you might say "it's not for me" and have a few unneeded LPs on your hands, but compare that with the cost of making the financial commitment of table, arm, and cartridge and it starts to look pretty cheap. You can always sell the things for 80% of what you paid for them. We LP lovers are suckers for "played once" ads :-)