As someone with hundreds of hours logged playing The Pinball Arcade, I will agree that virtual pinball can be very fun. (And it's a great way to learn a table's rules without shelling out a load of quarters.) And while I play on my PC with an Xbox gamepad and not on a full size virtual cabinet, I can say unequivocally that it doesn't compare to playing the real thing.

Virtual pinball is to the real thing as masturbation is to sex. It can be fun, but it's not even close to the real thing. (Also, if I go too long my hands hurt and I never invite my friends over to watch. The similarities are uncanny, man.)

For now, yes. Slippery slope.

And yeah - TSPP is the first real table I've owned. Love it a lot. It's reputation as being a deep rule set freak is well deserved. Highly recommended. The only downside is that it's one of my grail pins of sorts. Having it be my first pin when I only have room for 2 (maybe 3 if really push my luck) kinda limits my ability to rotate pins. Some people might recommend getting a table you don't care for as much so that you'll rotate things more often and keep things fresh. I almost guarantee that my next table will be something I don't care about nearly as much so that I can play it for a few months and move on.

Regarding virtual pinball - you don't need to make the investment in a cabinet if you want to try it out first. The Pinball Arcade is available on ios, android, PS4, Xbox, and PC through Steam. If you're interested in more non-real life tables there's Zen's Pinball FX2, but that's really taking the idea more into video game land and further away from a pinball simulation.

Edit - to explain something further - part of the problem with virtual pinball (At least with The Pinball Arcade) is that their physics engine makes things too predictable. A ball comes out of a scoop or saucer exactly the same way 99+% of the time. If you get good at making shots, know the rules for a table and practice, there are numerous tables where your games can last hours upon hours. Especially tables that don't have a hard cap on the number of extra balls you can earn. It's fun, but it's just not the same.

Definitely. The bottom line no matter what should be to get something that you enjoy playing.