To me, both aspects are important but there's a big dose of reality that has to be factored in when you're talking about a daily driver and not a fair weather toy.
My daily driver is regularly detailed, waxed polished, windows cleaned inside and out, vacuumed, vinyl and leather cleaned and conditioned. Since moving to a house and having two kids "regularly" just occurs less often
It's winter and there's salt everywhere here. The car is covered in salt right now. An asute person can see, however, that it's waxed and polished under the salt since the salt beads LOL I've generally had any dents it ever received removed by PDR. *I* hate seeing them. There's one picked up from a nursery school drop off (don't you love how people who treat their cars as appliances seem to manage to damage yours too?) that is relatively minor in the grand scheme of things that I'm living with but it bothers me every time I get in the car.
I also fuss over maintenance and upkeep, and work to keep everything working just like new within financial reason. I don't wait for things to break, if something starts squeaking or changes in sound it goes on "the list" so something stupid like an idler pulley doesn't leave me stranded. After 13 years on the road the clutch is getting a little annoying, but I'm going to live with it a little longer - it's grabby not slipping. It's not abnormal for me to be popping under the car doing minor jobs on the weekend. "There's Craig under the car again" is something I've heard from the neighbours. I might be doing something like trying to stop a heat shield from rattling or whatever - 30min tops. I generally always have a mental list of "what's coming" and what needs to be accomplished in the next couple of months. I shop for deals on OE parts and DIY everything I can.
Some weekends (like once a year - MAYBE twice) she's lucky enough to get the full treatment and she looks almost showroom. I've used Dr. Colorchip on chips and some road rash, the headlights have 40 mil 3M protective film on them. I think even non car people can tell when an older car looks REALLY good for its age.
I find that staying on top of things, including detailing, leads to less work overall to achieve the same results. If you're just washing winter salt off in July trying to work up a bit of a shine before a wedding - good luck. When you keep things clean, polished and waxed UNDERNEATH the grime, bugs, bird poo, tar, salt, brake dust etc.... it cleans off really easy. My hand wash routine is pretty quick and the car looks great when I'm done for a "weekly" investment of 20min. I only do a "big" detail once a year in the spring including a ROB and compounds. I try to throw one quick coat of wax (15 mins maybe?) on every 4-6 weeks or so through the summer and I put a couple of coats on at one time in late fall which takes me through salt season. I clean, polish and wax my wheels during the seasonal change from snows to summers - brake dust just rinses off and you can really visually see a difference from 5min invested per wheel.
