at the end of the day you can rock a show with serato just like you coulkd with dats back in the day but turntables are gonna bring out a persons true personality..theres more of a need for creativity with turntables wheras serato basically lays your gameplan out for you.
Gas, with Serato, YOU USE VINYL...They're time coded vinyl records that sync with the software....the ONLY DIFFERENCE is that the songs themselves come off the hard drive and u keep the same 2, REAL VINYL RECORDS on your REAL TURNTABLES lol. Basically it's like using a record that has multiple songs on it except you're not limited to any particular amount. If I scratch and the needle skips, the song skips. If I change the pitch or stop the turntable, the song reacts the same way it would as tho I were using the record with that song on it. There isn't any "magic" that it gives you with the exception that Coma pointed out, it shows you the waveforms on the laptop screen so you can also cue by looking at the screen while u mix in the headphones.
There are plenty of vids on youtube that explain better than I can how it works. Not to mention the ones I posted showing respected turntablists using it...At the end of the day, who really gives a shit where the song itself is coming from. The same skill amount is required. The records you use are the same. The tables are the same. The mixer is the same etc etc.
But I get what you're saying about when u started. I got probably 4,000 records literally that I've collected over the years. Nice thing is now when I wanna play one, I don't risk fuckin them up at the club or wherever I'm at.