Matt, I'm not knocking Harley's or any of the others, they all have their place and each to their own. There is however a lot of smoke and mirrors in the mid range of car care with in my view actually some ellements of danger with some products if you are planning to keep your motor for any lenth of time. Absolutely avoid any paint products that contain silicone, these will give you a fabulous 'wet' look shine with little effor, they will shed water easily and stay clean for a good time but; Silicone does not degrade, it does not come off the paint and in fact it actually sinks into the paint and continues over time through the paint all the way to the metal and at that point it will start to detatch the paint from the metal. A bare metal respray is the next step and even then you have no guarentee the silicone is off the metal.... I have seen this on a couple of occasions and recently I've been dealing with a metal working factory in Tyneside that have just had to have their powder coating ovens replaced because someone used a silicone grease on the door hinges!!!
All ofthe mid range products use a petrolium suspension for the mixture and this is formulated to work whilst it is in ballance, if you picture a mixture something like 40% chalks or clays (abrasives and bulking), 40% petrolium distillates, 11% wax, 6% water and 3% colours and perfumes. When you apply it from the pot everything is nicely in ballance and you then spread it over the panel, imediately you start to loose the water and distillates, most of these products will give you around 30 seconds working time in sill shadey and mild conditions, after the work time is over the distilate levels will have dropped and the mixture will be out of ballance, any chalks or clays are not properly suspended and start to cake up and abrade more than is desireable. Add to the mixture residual wax from the last treatment if you are trying to build layers and the mixture is thrown into imballance almost immediately as the distillates will lift the old wax. True waxes like Harley's and SvwissVax (I know this will upset some on here) don't have the abrasives but still require the distillates to keep it all workable, over work it or try and build layers and you are going to encounter the same issues.
Anyway; button pushed!