Matter of taste.  Surface noise on vinyl is not for me.  I'm not sure how it makes performance more natural since there is no surface noise at the live performance.
Huh? They're talking about ambient noise in the recordings not surface noise from the media.

Well, he has whole chapter on surface noise.  Ambient noise in the recording will be the same for digital and analog.  Same goes for microphone noise.  
I had no idea of what they were talking about. It was either absolute drivel or totally over my head and I can't figure out which.