For my own usefulness, I still prefer to buy and rip a CD than purchase from iTunes. Ripped CDs are able to be edited, such as combining tracks; while iTunes purchased music cannot do this. This is beneficial when you have albums that have songs broken into stances, parts, sections, or combinations that are supposed to be played together as one long song (Think Pink Floyd, Classical Music, and Beatles).
iTunes treats each section as a separate song. When you go to shuffle the songs, you often hear just one part of the whole song. Chicago's, "Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon", Rush's, "2112", many Classical compositions, or the Beatle's medially of, "Mean Mr. Mustard", "Polythene Pam", and "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" are all supposed to be played together as one long song. iTunes separates these into individual songs and does not let you combine them unless you do so on a CD before you rip it and save it in iTunes.