I'm a little confused by this. Are you implying that vinyl (even subjectively) is better than the analogue master tape? If so, then it really is just a preference for the distortions peculiar to the format.
We can hear the hiss of the studio master tapes on a vinyl record, so that implies some idea of the noise floor of bubbly and of master tapes.
However most people were not running studio master tape systems at home in the 80s, and they were running a cassette tape player.
A vinyl record in the early 80s, was probably better than a cassette tape, unless (perhaps) it is on a very good cassette player… (I dunno)
Secondly:
The fact that many speaker systems have distortion levels that are as high or higher than a vinyl rig, sort of means that the vinyl would not be “the long pole in the tent” for them… it is their speakers.
It is very similar to people with 2% HD and high IMD speakers, saying that a certain amp sounds way better… It could be marginally better… But moving from a 0.01% to 0.001% amp, is much less than 2% distortion from speakers.
I know that the title of thread is “Why… Records…”, which is more factually historic.
Although now there is also a nostalgic, and ceremonial aspect.