Vinyl albums and even some vinyl singles had cover art, and sometimes some extra goodies. For instance, Sgt. Pepper had a sheet of cut out artwork, and I think it had some other goodies as well. Now, MOST albums didn’t have the extra goodies, but just the cover art on most albums was a great extra. And you just can’t get that level of art goodness on a smaller package, there’s not enough area.
Other than that, the later forms of recorded music were more durable.