Yeah I found traditional hot composting a lot of work. And around here it seems to not quite finish off properly unless it sits for 12 months (then again it's frozen for 6 months of the year).
I've been vermicomposting for about 5 years now. The first year was a bit wild as the worms and I got to know each other. Now I feed them tea leaves, melon / squash / cucumbers, and vege scraps (except garlic and onions). I never add
water. I don't bother with paper or bedding anymore, and I use a multilevel system so the worms travel up and down as needed. My system has a sump to collect leachate so it never gets too wet or dry for that matter. It never gets stinky and it lives inside during the winter so that would have been a deal breaker. I drain the leachate off once every 6 months or so and that IS stinky.
The castings take 12 months to process, and I clean out the bottom container in the fall to use in the spring for seed raising. It could be in there longer as the worms still love hanging out in it, but I find that's enough time for the egg population to have dropped off somewhat.
Processing the castings is a pain in the ass. The best method I've found so far is to spread it out on some plastic during a sunny day and over a period of hours remove the castings from the outside as the worms migrate into the center. I'm always left with a bunch of worms and eggs. And young potted plants don't like living with worms as I have discovered.
So I put the collected castings into a pail, loosely cover it with a garbage bag, and let it sit somewhere warm for about a month. The remaining worms will turn the castings, and a bunch of the eggs will hatch and this is why I leave it to sit. The consistency goes from muddy and clumpy, to light and fluffy. Eventually the worms will be found hanging out in the top inch or so of castings, and I'll scoop them up and put them back into the composting system. I still miss a bunch, and so the castings get stored outside so the cold temps will kill off the rest.
I've found this to be the simplest way to process the castings, and in the spring when I thaw it out and screen it using one of those wire trash cans as a screen, there is not one worm or egg to be found.
At the moment I only use the castings in potting mix and seed raising mix. However I did release composting worms into the garden, and each fall I make a winter home for them so they survive the ice and snow. I now find them all over the garden so they certainly travel.