I know I personally prefer (cosmetic benefit) of not loosing a tooth. Out of several people I know who have had root canals, all have been happy with the result...
Disclaimer: All have been upper middle income with relatively good dental insurance in the US.
And root canals can be fixed, and re-fixed, and re-re-fixed multiple times if things happen to go wrong. None of the alternatives we have so far come close to a natural tooth, even if it's just a crowned dead root stump.
The reason implants suck is that they don't have a peridontal ligament, instead they're rigidly attached to the bone. This means all kinds of issues like bone resorption due to non-absorbed shocks, lack of an natural immune barrier, poor proprioception.
I've done a whole lot of individual research in the last two months, consulted with two dentists and an endo, gotten opinions from friends and family etc... seeing that any procedure is irreversible, it seems prudent to take the least drastic option first. I don't have a particular concern about recurrent infection in this case, because my diagnosis is about trauma, not decay. What concerns do you have?