FWIW, it's just as easy to spend all your time looking at your turntables when you're mixing, especially when you aren't very good at beatmatching. When I was first getting started, it often took me like 2-3 minutes to get the beatmatching right, and spent almost all of that time looking at the turntables and not the crowd. Of course when I sucked at beatmatching, "the crowd" i was playing for was 5 or 10 people, half of which came with me.

What matters more than the medium is the individual who's playing from them.

I've performed a lot, both from a laptop and from vinyl (and a fair few times with both too) and anecdotally I can say using a laptop has never defined how much of a spectacle I choose to make of myself. The amount I've slept beforehand or whisky I've drank has a much bigger effect ;)