Thankfully ear cropping is illegal in the UK and it looks like tail docking will eventually also be banned.
I have worked in veterinary surgeries for over 20 years and have seen a few tail injuries mainly in greyhounds but i have also seen many docked dogs that have had serious problems with their stumps, many becoming extremely painful and infected. I have also seen one or two Old English Sheep dog puppies that suffered faecal incontenance due to the tail being docked too close too the rectum. Many years ago I worked in a surgery where the vet was happy to dock, I had to hold puppies while their tails were being chopped off and it's certainly not for the faint hearted, the puppies were extremely distressed and the dock did bleed. I have also seen puppies who had their tails banded that were horribly infected with the bone sticking out through the skin. Recently I know of a puppy bleed to death after it had been docked.
I recently watched a TV program which showed a vet cropping the ears of a 12 week old Pitbull puppy and I found it very distressing, the thought of subjecting a young puppy to a general anaesthetic and the pain of surgery (even with painkillers there will be some level of pain and discomfort) just for the "look" of cropped ears is terrible. I often read on boards, people saying that they are looking for a vet that doesn't GA dogs for hipscoring because of the risk involved with the GA but others are happy to have a puppy given a GA just to have their ears done.

I don't docking/cropping can be compared to neutering, forget about convenience and think about the health benifits. Spayed bitched will not develope pyometras or ovarian cancer both fairly common in older entire bitches, if spayed before the first season it removes the risk of mammary cancer, if spayed between first and second season the chances of developing mammary cancer is reduced. All of these conditions are life threatening. In male dogs neutering removes the risk of testicular cancer, Anal Adenomas (benign tumours that grow on and around the Anus that are driven by male hormones), prostate hyperplasia and perineal hernias. All of these conditions are fairly common in older entire males.

In the Uk we are seeing more and more docked customarily docked breeds turning up in the show ring with tails and many doing well. At Crufts this year the Australian Silky Best of breed winner was undocked and so was the Airdale CC winner to name a few. The Kennel club breed standard for all docked breeds now has a tail standard for undocked dogs too so hopefully there is light at the end of the tunnel and soon all dogs will have tails (unless they are born without them).

Forgot to say in my last post. I had a Jack Russell x Lakeland/Yorkie but looked very much like an Australian terrier, who I sadly lost last year at 18. He was a rescue, had been involved in a RTA when he was only 10 weeks old and his owners dumped him in the surgery, giving a false name and address. Rusty has damaged his radial nerve so his front leg was paralised and had to be amputated. He was a great wee dog and I miss him terribly. Now if I was to go out and buy an Ozzie terrier puppy and take him to the Vet and have his front leg amputated to make him look like Rusty, because I liked the "Look" then I'm sure all of everyone including the pro docking people would find this horrific, and rightly too cos of course I would not even consider this but at the end of the day an amputation is an amputation whether it is a leg, tail or earflap and some would say it would be my choice.

Here, here, Susana! You have put to words everything I would have liked to say, but so much more eloquently. As a young girl, my family had a great dane, and my mother had her ears cropped. She regretted doing it and said she would never crop another dog's ears. Anyone who says there is minimal pain has either been extremely lucky or not actually done it do a dog -- our dog was clearly in agony, and we had to re-set the ears numerous times. The items we used for doing that were in a plastic bag by our back door, and our dog became so traumatized by it that for the rest of her life, whenever she heard a plastic bag, she would become frightened and run.