I admit, I'm one of these people so indoctrinated

About cleaning my guns.  I blame the military.  If my Sergeant could stick his finger in the chamber and find any carbon residue, that rifle didn't go into the armory until I had scraped it clean.  But modern firearms might not need such a white-glove treatment.

The U.S. military has a gun cleaning fetish that is a holdover from the days of corrosive primers (and black powder before that.) Boiling water cleaning and "white glove" intolerance for carbon have probably resulted in more guns being cleaned to death than shot to death. 

In reality, most modern firearms just need lubricant, and even that's to a varying degree. Current polymer-framed guns like the Glock, where the "frame rails" are tiny little tabs with hardly any bearing surface that mostly exist to keep the slide flying in close formation with the frame, are tolerant of running pretty dry. 

Occasional attempts to dispel these myths, like Uncle Pat's efforts with Filthy 14, manage to change a few minds, but the culture of squeaky clean remains well-entrenched.

Read it all, if you wish.  Given that ALL of my pistols (other than the .22) could be carried depending the current weather, I tend to clean those every time I go to the range, and I make sure the rails are properly lubed.  I clean all of my .22LR firearms religiously, because .22LR ammo is notoriously filthy.  But I don't tear my pistols down to the base components every time.  I normally just field strip them, make sure the barrel is clean, wipe out the carbon with some CLP and put them back together.  Even still, I'm pretty sure I'm far more thorough than I have to be.  Some training you just can't break.