Yeah, Fr Hesse always said he “felt sure” his ordination was valid. Of course, feelings are irrelevant. And the Sspx gave in to human respect and didn’t push the issue. Horrible leadership and unprincipled decisions.
Yes, that's disappointing that someone who's otherwise intellectual would proceed on the basis of a "felt sure".
There's absolutely plenty there that could be construed as positive doubt, and so there's no legitimate reason whatsoever not to conditionally ordain ... other than that it's being done for political reasons, because, well, we can't get the Conciliars upset with us and have our questions about their Orders ruin our chances for regularization. They overplay (on purpose) this idea that you "can't" conditionally administer Sacraments unless you have positive doubt and then artificially raise the bar for what suffices to create positive doubt. It's all very dishonest, and if they're wrong, their eternal salvation could be on the line, especially if this kind of dishonesty factored into their "decision".
There's no risk of sacrilege whatsoever in conditional administration of the Sacraments, since that's what the CONDITIONAL form is, where if it had already been validly administered, there's no risk of a repetition of the Sacrament. Outside of that, there would be a risk of sacrilege if some bishop or priest just went around willy-nilly administering the Sacraments to anyone with a pulse ... but this is clearly NOT that type of situation. We have a bunch of Modernists who have infiltrated the Church and have clearly CHANGED and tampered with the Sacramental Rites.