If vaping was just a form of NRT, and had nothing else going for it, then I'd have quit vaping something like nine months ago. Because that's when I went to 0 nic. I'd started at 24, and used some 30 at first when I'd have serious cravings. (Mostly after meals.) Once I was off the cigs for awhile, I started cutting the nic down a bit at a time.
If NRT was the only point, then I wouldn't be vaping. After all, I'm not getting nic. But the *habit* is still strong. Even at zero nic, if I go a long time without vaping, I start feeling the urge. When one of my trigger points (stress, eating a meal, drinking alcohol) hits, then I darn well want to vape. The fact that I'm not getting any nic doesn't change that.
I do think that a lot of people try a gas-station cig or similar and say "It's not for me". Without good equipment, I'd probably still be smoking.
I also think that even if you get good equipment and experiment for a bit, find a flavor/nic level combo that works for you, etc, it's still not going to work for you if you don't want to quit. In this case, you say in the first post that you don't really want to quit, and it sounds like you went and got a gas station e-cig. Sure, going that way, I'd be pretty surprised if it worked.
Juice is probably the most important part to get right, and the hardest to get right. If you don't have enough nic, failure. If you have too much nic, failure. Some people need WTA's, else they get failure. You have to enjoy the flavor, else failure. And for most people, figuring out what juice works for them is fairly expensive, placing online orders for juices they haven't tasted and crossing their fingers. Heck, I've been vaping for almost 3 years, and I still have a bunch of juice I bought early on, because I didn't like it so it went to waste.
It's not the same as smoking. It's similar, and I certainly used it to switch my addictions to something healthier and cheaper, but it's not the same.
I have friends who started vaping, stuck with it, and are still happily vaping. I also have friends that tried it out and gave up. My theory is that those that tried it and gave up don't really want to quit smoking. If they really wanted to quit, they would try some different juice, adjust their nic level, ask questions, and find a way to make it work. It wasn't easy for me, either, and it took me months to get cig free. Eventually, I went to 30nic juice, and that did the trick. But it would have been easy for me to give up, go back to smoking, and say "Nothing else ever worked for me either".