They use to do a lot of cutting but know they got the technique down. It's not a devastating as it once was. My friend right after the operation as you said had to walk after the operation.
What I find curious is that one of the ways you wear out a joint is from over use like Yates did with heavy weight. Then you have people that do absolutely nothing physical their whole life that need a new hip. Just an observation and I could be wrong but you don't hear a lot about hip replacements in the running community.
Type "runners and hip replacement" into Google and see how many links pop up.
Must be a quite a few runners getting hip replacements.
Some runners are even foolish enough to resume running after having a hip replacement caused by their years of running.
Most of the links are about returning to running after hip replacement. These people are a surgeon's ideal customers...repeat business.
Running on hard surfaces like blacktop and concrete likely contributes to excessive wear and tear.
Many adult folks only recently got into running or lifting weights and therefore have not caused the damage yet from repeated trauma over a long time.
Of course, some people like yourself, don't have issues, just like some people can smoke until their 100 and not have problems.
Plus you run on softer surfaces most of the time, right? That's good.
We are all fine until we aren't is how it works.