[velobard]

I've barely touched my Concours so I'm not claiming to speak with any authority here, but my first impression was that applying by hand would stretch the wax further. The amount of wax left on my hand seemed less than I would wind up with left in a foam pad. I also didn't find application by hand to be any sort of extra hassle at all. I'll obviously bend to Paul's wisdom that it has the potential to mar soft clear coats (and with the effort he puts into his details I'm sure that was enormously frustrating), but that doesn't appear to be a big concern with my cars.