I think a lot of the cleaning routines that we grew up with and are ingrained in us came from our fathers and incolved the fact that they (and some of us) grew up in a time where there was a lot of corrosive ammunition that was used. Couple that with the fact that most guns were blued and there was no stainless firearms and it was ingrained in us that you CLEANED your guns after every shooting session.
Today if it is stainless and doesn't get wet, it gets a swab through the bore and cylinder and a wile down with whatever I have lying around to get the loose crud off and then it is good to go. Shotguns after a duck hunt get a bore snake and a wipe down with some sort of rust preventative. Full take down cleaning takes place after the season is over. When I started out, thee were no shot cups and you had to actually use a brush to get the lead streaks out of the barrel but that is not of any concern today. Hell, I shoy my dad's second year production 1100 until around 2000 before I actually punched the pins out and cleaned the innards.
Now if it gets wet or dunked, then different story. Case in point my son let my old A5 go swimming years back and didn't tell me. He did a pretty good job of cleaning it out and there was no evidence of any dunking no rust no nothing. He did a good job of cleaning it out except for one thing. The following year I opened the bolt and it froze. The recoil spring in the butt stock had rusted solid. Took a trip to the smith to clean that up.
Don't even speak to me about cleaning a Ruger 22 pistol
