A few sorta-random thoughts follow:
Getting a finish marring free, let alone *keeping* it that way, is very hard. Period. If it weren't, there wouldn't be all these posts all over the internet about marring removal.
IMO there's a limit to how important it oughta be anyhow. Fillers and concealing? Who cares- does the car look good? That's what really counts to me. I often think that the pursuit of perfection can take a lot of the fun out of the whole car-hobby thing. Not that I let that stop me on some of our vehicles
Sorry for the semi-rant
Even the hardest paint will get marring, just the nature of it. The sort of stuff that scratches the paint is very abrasive stuff... tiny specks of rocks and other things like that. The "dust" that gets on cars is a lot more abrasive than the dried skin-type dust you get in a house. When this abrasive stuff gets pressed against the paint and then moved, it causes marring.
The hard clear like on Audis only helps a tiny little bit when it comes to resisting marring, but when mild corrective actions like PC polishing are employed, that tiny added hardness makes a big difference. My Audis are a lot harder than my Mazda minivan, yet they get marred *almost* as easily.
No way *I* can QD without marring, but I know others do it all the time. Good for them, glad it works out..but that doesn't mean it's right for *me*. Gotta stick with what works for you (heh heh, gotta figure out what that is first).
There's most likely something wrong with the wash regimen, although even with my over-the-top method I get a little marring from time to time and eventually it adds up. Even with the foamgun, you gotta keep in mind that basic issue- pressing dirt against the paint and then moving the dirt will cause marring.
I'm gradually coming to the conclusion that the BHB/foamgun combo, with a light (barely bending the tips of the bristles) "jiggling" of the BHB (instead of wiping with regular strokes), is perhaps the safest way to wash. With the jiggling, where the BHB is only moved a fraction of an inch at a time, any marring that *does* occur (and it's not much with the foamgun blasting through the bristles) is so tiny that it's of little consequence. I get most of the dirt off this way and then switch to a mitt for the follow up, still blasting foam between the mitt and the panel or using the "mitt balloon" technique where I spray suds from inside the mitt. Again, the shorter the strokes you make with the wash media the less noticeable marring will be.
On the pads, some cutting pads lose their cut pretty fast, but polishing and finishing pads can work fine for a long, long time. Doing correction by PC can take a long time (hours per panel in some cases). Try 4" pads, they behave much more aggressively as you can apply more pressure without bogging down the PC.
On the products, if something doesn't work *for you* I'd try something else. There are so many polishes/compounds on the market that I don't believe in struggling to "master" a product.
