I was in the garage most of the day doing some product testing and part of it was using all the different electric polishers...
While reliability can only be proven over time, performance for all 3 brands was solid as compared to any of the first generation DA Polishers.
The Griot's definitely has the most power on paper and the most power on paint, but in the real world, in most cases, if you kept all parameters the same, pad, chemicals, same car, same garage, same lighting, same energy drink, same lunch, same extension cord, etc.
If you started on a swirled out car at 8:00am in the morning, this assumes it was washed, dried and clayed the night before so you can start out first thing on a clean, dry car, you would finish the job about the same time no matter which polisher in this range you used.
Part of the reason is that even if one has more power than the other, you still need to move the polisher slowing over the paint during the correction step and you still need to break the panels up into smaller sections and work section by section, for the correction step.
For the polishing step you still break the car up into small sections but it goes faster since you're just refining the results from the correction step.
for the sealing step you're just doing a great job of applying the wax or sealant over the surface for uniform coverage, (assuming you're doing this by machine too), but you can tackle as large of a section as you can reach or as the product on your pad will allow you to adequately coat-over.
Wipe-off and/or drying and wipe-off is a variable that depends upon the protection product you're using and can vary, but if you were to use all the same chemicals and apply all by machine to the same car in the same condition then you would finish the job about the same time no matter which machine you were using.
I might give the Griot's Garage Polisher the edge in using less time for the correction step but overall if the job is going to take 8 hours from start to finish with one tool it's going to take 8 hours from start to finish with any of the tools.
For any lurkers reading this, you can see what a section pass is and the entire process for working one section from correction, to polishing to waxing by watching these videos...
Video -
How-To do a "Section Pass" when Machine Buffing
Video -
How to Remove Swirls with the Porter Cable 7424XP
