I know where you're coming from, Neil, and agree. However, who knows what would happen, in that respect, were you to invest more money in every aspect of your vinyl set-up, which successfully addressed key areas of its performance, thus allowing it to compete with your digital set up?
I'm afraid when I hear folk saying how 'so much better' their CDP or digital source is than their turntable, or vice versa, my first thought is: get a better turntable or CD player, and attempt to level the playing field, than necessarily that the music format itself, belonging to the preferred playback equipment, is inferior or superior...
One thing you're unquestionably right about is that *all* CD transports introduce jitter, to varying degrees, and so the complete absence of that effect with a file-based set up, is one of the main reasons why, all else being equal, it has the potential to outperform any CD player.
Marco.