Back to analog ..was it a mistake???

Buy a couple of new LPs to see if they don't change your mind. You may have screwed up all your old LPs back in the day. If a new 180g pressing of a great, classic recording doesn't float your boat, then you screwed up. It's good that you bought much of the equipment used so that you can jettison it without too big a loss.

I never got rid of my LP's. The early sound of digital was ok, but not good enough for me to dump vinyl. Present day digital is great (not to mention that most of the music available is on CD or download). But I'm not going to rebuy all my music in CD format just to get rid of the vinyl and its issues.
But, (knock on wood) if my house burned down and all my vinyl was lost I wouldn't attempt to replace it. I'd just get CD or downloads.
Vinyl is benefiting from the same nostalgia effect as steam trains or antique cars.

I put my analog system on the back burner for many years while I focused on dialing in digital and coincidentially accumulating a huge collection of music not available on vinyl. I was pretty happy and I finally put the analog system away.

The the day for Goodwill donations approached and I was looking at all of that stuff and my cherished, but not often used collection of LP's, and couldn't make up my mind. One of the items I had to give away was a Denon 61F TT that I was given by my now deceased father in law. I had never set it up - it just sat in a box NOS! After all it was just a Denon with a cheapo Shure cartridge. :-)

Well I was curious so before I gave it away I thought I'd set it up and see if it was as bad as I expected. I used an old Magus for a pre-amp and played a good LP with lots of sonic potential including dynamics and bass. The thing that amazed me was the dynamics in the bass. Very tight!!!! Whoa, that's new!!! After a while I recognized that I was also hearing far too much info from the grooves that I had never heard before. Not music but groove noise. It was unnatural and I knew I wouldn't listen much. I then put on my old cartridge from yesteryear (a Benz Glider). It sounded much better. In fact most of the surface noise went missing. I changed a few tubes and it sounded even better. Then I dragged out my old ARC Pre and tuned it with my cartridge, still using the cheapo Denon, and the sound is now quite good. In fact better than my system with my probably poorly set up old Oracle.

I enjoyed the vinyl set up greatly but not for the ultimate difference in the acoustics so much as the ability to listen to some of my favorite old recordings on occasion. So long as I don't think of how it sounds compared to my digital system I'm good. The tics pops and other extraneous noise was still there but if the music is important you can listen thru it. And if the music is not worth it because of this noise ditch the disc!

IMHO analog is a fussy system and takes a lot of time both in set up and use. You really have to enjoy the process and, I think more importantly, the music you possess to make it worth while. For someone coming new to audio I would never recommend vinyl unless it was as a means to buy a lot of music to expand their exposure to, knowledge of, and collections of music (especially classical music) on the cheap, music not available on CD's.

FWIW. Only you can make the call on whether it is worth it or not to pursue analog further.

What CDP are you comparing it to? Is the Linn sited on a good platform? It might be worth gambling a few hundred more on a top NOS MM cartridge(e.g Ortofon M60FL or M60E from Willian Thakker). This should handily beat the Denon and find the soul in your LPs.