I can give you the perspective of a total newbie - I got my PC yesterday, and used the yellow pad w. SMR on the hood & front fenders last night, and one door & rear fender tonight. Also applied Zymol by hand, and then used a terry bonnet over lambswool to work the wax, followed by hand buff off w. a MF towel.
I've gotten the best results so far by:
applying 5-6 small dots of SMR around the perimeter of the pad, inside the highest (thickest) part of the pad. dots bigger than a pencil thickness, maybe as big as a dime
place the pad against the paint & smear back & forth to distribute before powering up
start at speed of ~3 to start, cover the area with straight lines, overlapping each line about 1/3 to 1/2 of the pad diameter, then use straight lines at 90 degrees to the first set of lines. Moderate pressure; I'm just distributing material & pulling some into the pad as well. Do this for 1-2 minutes, moving at a speed of 1-3 inches/second
Increase speed to ~4.5, follow same kind of pattern/speed as above, for 2-3 minutes as the polish hazes up & starts to dry out. Use fairly firm pressure, depending on how bad the swirls are.
Increase speed again to 6, and work the polish until it almost entirely disappears & the paint gets nice & glossy. There will be a lot of dry flakes/powder thrown off during this process. Start fairly strong pressue, back off to lighter & lighter pressure.
Now, I am NOT any kind of expert!!:bow I've exhaustively read 'bout every post on this board about PC & polish (and wax), and thought I'd thrown in a novice's perspective about how I'm feeling my way so far.
The video on this site re: buffing is nice/valuable to watch, though I wouldn't start with lambswool pad!!
Oh, and I pulled on a pair of leather weightlifting gloves w. double-thickness leather palms, to try & give my hands a break from the vibration of the PC...