I found my angiogram/cath quite a nuisance -- except for the exam itself, which was kind of neat. I did enjoy watching my innards on the big screen. And the feeling of being scalded when they injected a LOT of die into my aorta was unbelievable!
But having two slowly-healing uncomfortable "corks" in my groin (one in my femoral artery, the other in the adjacent vein) for the next couple of weeks, not being able to bicycle, and having the worry that I might "pop" a cork. . . was more unpleasant than most of the aftermath of my OHS a few weeks later (at least so far)! Even lying there for a half-hour with a 10-pound sandbag on my groin was "up there" competing pretty well with the unpleasantness of the actual open-heart surgery.
Of course, I'm weird enough that if I had a choice between a dozen average-sized needles and OHS, I'd have to think about it before deciding. . .