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Laptop + Traktor + Midi control box - you don't have an option for that so no vote.
I like having thousands of my tracks there, all categorized by genre, artist, BPM, my comments, etc, and I can change the sorting order or find and load a track within seconds, this is impossible with CDs and vinyl. But probably you could do that with Serato / FInal Scratch.
All my equipment is in one bag and it fits in a small crowded DJ booth or friends' party rooms. Because of the portability there is less hassle for me bring my equipment, while people who are asked to bring out their own CD/vinyl decks & mixer often will not bother because it's too much work and they risk damaging something. Granted, people who DJ at a normal well-equipped club or party will only need to bring their discs, while I'm bringing a laptop & accessories.
If the place has a crappy mixer and bad monitors or no monitors - it's not a problem, because I cue in my headphones and I have a software mixer and Midi knob box to let me do the hands-on adjustments. Also I don't need to worry much about operating the oddball/malfunctioning mixer setups that the clubs often have, because I mostly use my own equipment. All I need is to plug into their mixer or amp and set some levels and then I hardly need to touch their stuff again.
I use quality MP3s I rip from my own CDs (and a few vinyl) plus downloads from BeatPort etc. When I compare the sound from those MP3s and WAV, to me and all my friends, there is no difference at all.
I use the automatic beatmatching, it's a low-level mechanical process that the computer does very well (once you've figured out the trade secrets), and it frees up my time for other things. I still do the fine adjustments to the beatmatch and the bar-matching or phase-matching. Do the DJs on vinyl (and CDs to a less extent) look cool while they beatmatch? Yes. Do I want to do that? No, to me it would be a step backward.
I can do some digital things that are impossible or difficult on vinyl & CD. Such as some types of beat juggling. I can play a wider variety of music types & BPMs because of all those tracks and genres I carry, and key-locking. Once I did a warm-up set that went from 70 BPM down-tempo to 130 house in about 45 minutes. I doubt that the average DJ would be able to do that since most stick to one genre and a narrow BPM range.
My system works very well, no it's not perfect by any means, but it does not feel dorky and awkward. The bad feeling is what you get if you run music software on a slow computer and try to control everything with a mouse or keyboard. I would say my computer with Traktor 2.53 and a nice Midi knob box, runs like a good little sportscar. It works for me.
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