By keeping the wax protective layer up, (3-4 waxings per year) your boat will always look good and you shouldn't need any hard yearly compounding to keep it that way. This will save you money right now and add years to the time before the boat will need to be painted.
On the boats that we've maintained for several years we usually give it a thorough going over with a very fine compound in the spring just to give it that "bright" look. This removes only a very thin layer of oxidized pigment to give the wax a solid base to adhere to.
Alistair is the owner of several web properties including boatdir.com, horsedir.com climbingsource.com and a few others.