Thanks for you thoughts.
Needle and cart combo makes a massive difference. I noticed a huge jump when I switched from Stantons to Ortofon Concorde Nightclub many years ago.
Personally, I will be keeping any digitisations in archive as I'll probably end up getting a digital vinyl system. Even if not there is less friction to creating a new copy if I break/lose a CD brun.
The other question is, do you record the whole vinyl or selective mixes? The OCD part of me is screaming out that a whole release must be recorded, but the rational thing to do is only record the mixes I know I like.