Being a Volvo dealer tech myself and also a guy who's worked for indy shops as well, I can tell you that there are less than ideal "techs" and poor customer to tech communication problems at almost every place where they hire humans.

I hear you and from what you've written, it does sound like someone may not have properly diagnosed at least one problem BUT at almost 200K miles, bad things can and will also happen as the car is hardly "like new" either so I'm doubting that everything is someone elses fault.

What I advise doing from now on, at that dealership and in the future is that you insist that only a Volvo master tech work on your car and it doesn't hurt to get to know that person either.
At my dealership, we have customers who request that only I work on their car as they know that I'll fix it right and that other "techs" there might not.

In our area, there is not ONE indy tech who's ever been to one Volvo class at Volvos semi-local school or has any new car or dealer experience with any FWD Volvos. I know that because I've been a dealer tech for over 20 yrs and know everyone in the area who's been with Volvo since that time. Anyone anywhere can do services, changing spark plugs and brakes but diagnosing more technical problems usually takes a tech with more experience.

As for other brands of cars, it'll be the same or similar no matter what. Volvo, Honda, Toyota, Ford, GM, etc, etc....same chances of getting less than ideal service and I'll advise the same, request that their best and most qualified tech ONLY work on your car.

Unfortunately with the auto business, there are NO requirements to getting hired as a "tech" so when any auto business anywhere needs a body, they'll often hire anyone who walks in the door even if that person lacks proper qualifications to work on YOUR car. There is no requirement for a degree of sorts BUT IMO, there really needs to be as some people really need to be weeded out of the business. I don't see that happening. There are "techs" presently working who are too stupid to pass even the simpler ASE tests SO why are they still working on cars?

If you choose to go to an indy tech, make sure that the guy working on your car has actual Volvo education/experience with FWD Volvos (not just older RWDs which are far simpler) and that he is at least an ASE master tech which means that he has at least some minimal knowledge of cars in general (nothing more).