I wonder. I've done the gear-head thing since I was young. Disassembled and reassembled engines, transmissions, transfer cases. Serviced every vehicle we've ever owned myself, and upgraded/modified a good many of them, too, including building custom suspension parts. Learned plumbing and electrical work in the field and by the code. Design buildings and run construction projects for a living. Make knives, handload ammo ... hell, I even delivered two of the kids myself here at home (though my wife says she had a hand in it).
And that's lead me to think a lot about efficiency and reliability and the ways things really work. And to test things out and see where the rubber really meets the road.
So when I want to find out how reliable a 1911 might be, I may just run it week after week in practice to see when it really starts to become unreliable. Then I know, or have a pretty good guess, when it would happen again. I run guns and put them away dirty and pick them up next time and check for rust or other problems, and shoot them, taking mental notes of any poor performance or other issues. After years of that kind of testing, I've come to believe that -- now that we're using non-corrosive priming compounds and minimally fouling gunpowders, this habitual cleaning obsession is really pointless, if not counterproductive.
I know, for an absolute FACT (to whatever degree someone can know these things) that I can run my xDM for 1,000 rounds straight without a stoppage or slowing, or even a need for lubrication (under most conditions). I expect I could get nearly twice that out of it without extra lube, but I don't know that for sure. I don't generally do that. Usually I'll clean it at the halfway point or so, knowing I have plenty of reserve reliability in that system before I could reasonably expect any trouble at all.
So what then is the point? I'm a pretty confident type of guy so I don't need to brag to anyone about how clean my gun is, and I know it's going to work through the round count I'm running, so I have no other reason to decrease my maintenance interval.