I think the "colon segment vaginas smell!" thing is an urban myth that should have been put to bed a long time ago. It seems a lot of people have "heard" this or "knew someone" that said this, but don't have a lot of personal experience with it. We've had a fair amount of post-op women on here that had colon vaginoplasty, and most have said odor was not an issue at all, even when they expected it to be after being told on forums like this one that it would smell. I have even seen doctors claim the colon segment surgery can have LESS odor than PI, because it's already an internal organ and not a tube made from skin. Which brings me to my next point: PI vaginoplasty can and does have issues with odor in some people. This has been noted in post-op exams and commented on by many people on this board. Especially in the first few months post-op it's easy for dead skin, gunk, lube, etc. to get stuck up on there with PI and that can cause a bad smell. Some people struggle with odor issues for much longer, and nobody is quite sure why though many suspect abnormal vaginal flora or low-grade bacterial infection.
The real reason to generally consider PI over colon surgery is that it's technically easier and does not involve opening up the abdomen and rerouting your digestive tract. Even so, in some places in Europe, colon vaginoplasty is much more frequent and even a first-line approach in some centers, and the patients do fine and have a low risk of complications. I suspect that it will be largely replaced by peritoneal pull-through over time, but right now it's still a good choice for revision surgery or when you just don't have any material to work with.
