I do the A-pillars with a rotary, tilted a little bit and only a little bit of the pad touches the paint. Before that, I always used a Cyclo, but a PC and 4" pads would do a great job as well. I wouldn't do them by hand, as you are simply not going to get good swirl removal by hand with
Menzerna products.
I don't tape off the doors or edges either - I've never burned paint on an edge before, but when using a rotary I slow down the machine speed towards the edges. Via PC, burning through an edge has never been a big worry for me. When I'm done polishing, I just open the doors and hood and wipe the jambs down with QD and a MF towel - removing any polish residue.
This pic shows how much I tape off when rotary compounding (HTEC) - I tape off any door edges that I wouldn't be able to get into and remove residue from, and any trim that could be burned by the rotary.
When I am finish polishing, I tape off far less. This is how much I would tape off for a PC or rotary with FPII - where there is less fear of burning trim and thick residue. I only tape off the fragile emblems and XM antenna. There is tape left over on the spoiler from the compounding step.
