mejinks, read the last paragraph I've quoted from atpbx and try to understand what he's saying, it's quite right.
I don't enjoy washing my car, but I do love seeing it clean, being rid of the dirt, tar and salt, and like to know it's protected as much as it can be for another 4 months.
Also, I'm a little different to atpbx in that I have a rotary, 2 types of pads in 2 sizes, a bottle of polish, a bottle of SRP, wheel cleaner, Wolfs shampoo, megs pads and a tub of collonite.
With the above I can get the swirls out of the paintwork, protect the car and wash it well with an excellent shampoo that does the job well. What you cannot grasp is that I'm taking the mick out of those buying all these fancy products when they already own previously 'flavour of the month' fancy products anyway, they just buy it because some internet forum and fancy pictures made them. It's quite funny.
My car looks just as shiny, with as little swirls and is well protected as many of the cars out there, but I don't need to spend hundreds or thousands to do it. I've done it well and can spend my time enjoying the car, driving it, rather than having a coronary thinking about the dirt you'l get on it the first drive after a wash.
It's a car, not a ****ing garden ornament, enjoy it, posting shiny reflection pics to internet nerds every week and spending a large part of your free time keeping it clean is just the trait of a show off, not a car enthusiast!