Fair enough, if that's what works for you, I must confess time has rarely been a consideration for me. I'm somewhat surprised that, as a professional, you don't adopt the the well versed "start with the least aggressive and work your way up" mantra though.
Sorry I may not have been clear in my last post so this may be a little confusing. I do use the method of using the least aggressive method to get the job done. But if I'm doing a car which has just left the show room, then i know that there is a good amount of factory clear coat on the paint for me to play around with. Although I'd still measure the paint thickness. BMW's for example have an absolute solid paint from my experience. So I wouldn't necessarily need to "work my way up" as from experience, once I know that the factory clear coat is there on a BMW, I can grab my rupes 21 and MF cutting pad and get on with it. Whereas if I'm working on a classic rare car, then I'd measure the paint before even considering compounding and polishing. And from there I'd use the least aggressive method and work my way up.
So it sum it up, if I'm working on a car which has factory paint, and I've worked on the same manufacteur car, the paint strength (soft or hard) tends to be consistent through all the cars of that make. As stated above, bmw's have solid paint from my experience. Hondas and a lot of Japanese cars have soft paint. I'd adjust my methods accordingly.
Although this thread is starting to go off topic so do PM me if you'd like to discuss more or let's start another thread. I love it when a good intelligent debate sparks as with everything else in life, we learn new things on a daily basis