After months of putting it off, today I finally replaced my bumper mesh.
I had purchased some alloy mesh and was going to replace the broken mesh with the alloy but a couple of months ago I spotted a set of OEM mesh inserts on eBay (from a seller in Riga, Latvia) for a very good price, so I ordered them.
Today I finally pulled the bumper and replaced them.
I now have a set of the (old) clips and frames from which to figure out a more solid replacement option, should I ever need to replace them again. Time to get busy with a dremel tool and remove the broken mesh from the frames.
The car looks MUCH better with no "missing teeth".