I've made a commitment to never needing to machine polish my car and so far so good.
An admirable goal, but unless you drive it very little, it's not entirely under your control. Just from driving over the course of a year, you car gets pelted with zillions of atmospheric dust particles and grit raised from the road by the cars (and especially trucks) that you drive behind and next to. If you live somewhere windy (or in my case, with dust storms), it's painful to listen to all the grit pelting your car as you drive through it.
Another thing I've noticed, if you drive after a good rain, but the roads have just dried, the rain apparently loosens up the road grit because the sound of the grit hitting your paint (due to the cars you are behind or next to, raising it from the road surface and flinging it back) after a rain is almost as bad as driving through a dust storm.
It's also not helpful that thousands of cars that were driving in the rain just got "mother nature's car wash" and all the debris from their cars ended up on the road surface.
You've also probably seen the threads where people have such soft "rice paper paint" that clean microfiber towels apparently instill some scratches. Fortunately I've not experienced that.
The moral of the story:
Don't get a car with soft paint, only drive on paved one-way country roads with no traffic, don't drive on windy days or after a rain, and you'll be fine ;o)
