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Most cases turn out just fine with lap mesh, robotic mesh, open mesh, and Shouldice, but it’s still a crapshoot. Assuming you did your research about your surgeon (I don’t know anything about him), you just got unlucky. Maybe you would have had better results with open mesh or Shouldice, and maybe you would have had other complications.
Intuitively, I don’t like lap or robotic mesh. I prefer to avoid general anesthesia, the large size of the mesh seems scary, attaching it seems risky, going through the abdomen seems dangerous, etc. Also, I don’t know how they even do it without opening you up if you have a large hernia that isn’t completely reducible. Still, I guess these techniques work well in practice in the vast majority of cases, so maybe I shouldn’t rely on my intuition with these things. If (God forbid) I get a recurrence, that’s probably what I’ll have to do.
My situation was completely different because I had more than just a hernia to contend with. It’s hard enough to get just a hernia treated well. Imagine needing two surgeons with different expertise working together. Things got messed up because I had a complex case, and surgeons mislead me saying it’s a non-issue. Well, it turned out to be an issue which led to other errors, and eventually a fix. Hopefully, not too much damage was done, and I’ll be ok with some more time healing.
I think very highly of Dr. Conze, although he didn’t see my problem coming either.