I don't really want/need that permanence. I want to be able to apply other products or polish if I want to. I see the draw for the regular joe who wants their car to be nice but isn't really interested in detailing beyond that. I enjoy detailing though, so something that requires me to detail less isn't really a positive for me.

For wheels I think coatings make a lot of sense. That's an area that gets extremely dirty and also doesn't really get the attention that the rest of the car does. It's not something I would bother to do on wheels I already had on the car, but it made sense and was easy enough to do on brand new wheels.

I've used Gyeon Wetcoat which is like Hydro2 and it's pretty amazing. It's si02 based but only lasts a few months unlike an actual coating. It takes almost zero effort to apply unlike other similar products where you have to spray it on and wipe it off with a towel.