You have such a small car, once you get used to claying it won't take long at all. It's the safest way to clean the paint of contamination. You could spray on solvents, but that wouldn't be good for the paint. Eventually, you'd start to see clear coat falure.

You know those Biore strips that are suppose to take our the black heads and on the commercial they say that it looks like a porcupine? Claying pulls out the small specs of...whatever...out of the paint kind of like that.

Paint "cleaners" are kind of misleading. They clean oxidation, and imperfections, chemically by disolving them, and breaking them down, but larger bits of contamination are still left lodged in the paint. If the paint isn't as smooth as glass, you're due for a claying. I think I'm getting redundant now though. I don't mean to baste you with this, I just disagree that it isn't a wasted step, although the results are sometimes not so easily seen with claying. More so--they are felt, to the touch.