I'd have to say that the person i know had a much happier experience with it and seems to be doing well, it's a few months since the op , it was the tendon version they had rather than bits of plastic.
As he says above it may be very much down to the individual, (plus a bit of pot luck) but my friend on the contrary said they would recommend the op. Sorry to cloud the issue but they're very positive about the op, bearing in mind they may have got the techniques refined somewhat in 14 years, just a thought
I will as I mentioned originally, get them to have a try on my bass at the first opportunity, tho they don't play they could give an opinion as to if it seemed like a thing that they would be happy to do, or not as the case may be !