Agree do not compound once a year. I compound once every 4-5 years myself.
You should only even be polishing with a finish polish only twice a year really. More important than the polishing is simply taking care of the car. Wash it often, or at least once a month and very important dry it properly with a microfiber waffle weave or carefully with an absorber. I also use spray detailer, I make my own, I keep in the trunk for on the go bird bomb cleanings.
I even use a microfiber car duster in between washes sometimes. This only works well if you keep your car waxed. I tend to wax mine every other car wash. This lets me use the car duster and all the dust just falls off the car. If the paint starts looking a little swirly instead of my usual Collinite waxings I'll use a decent cleaner wax on my cheapy wax spreader like in the link I posted before but with a foam pad. I've since modified the waxer to take Harbor Freight 6" polishing pads since the original foam backing wore out. Meguiars NXT 2.0 and the wax spreader also basically extends my polishing now probably to once a year since it cleans and hides/eliminates fine swirls so well.
My cars are kept outdoors 24/7 and in the hot southern California sun which is comparable in paint punishment to anything in Arizona. And they never have problems. But I've posted before that even the mighty Collinite which can last all winter in those wintery states but just seems to evaporate off paint that never gets wet. I've seen it last 6 months in New Jersey from fall, through winter and spring and it still beads effectively. But through a constant summer heat wave in California I've seen the beading go in less than 8 weeks with Collinite.
So the gist of it is wash it often (albeit carefully), wax it often with a high quality pure wax like Collinite, you can use a cleaner wax and machine if some swirl reduction is needed between real polishings, and you'll have no problems. And don't compound once a year. Finish polishing up to a maximum of about two a year is fine though. A recompounding of the whole car is almost never needed for me unless things get really bad.
