I do think that there can be something lost when listening to an assortment of single tracks as opposed to cohesive albums. Getting a new album and letting it play all the way through definitely feels like a different experience to me than putting on a playlist of assorted tracks.
With the prevalence of streaming music I wonder if more and more artists are abandoning the creation of cohesive albums?
There's also the issue that, I think, that compressed audio files are particularly susceptible to bit-rot (perhaps compressed files of all kinds?). If you don't have a physical copy to re-rip from then you could well be boned.