[Skyhigh]

Thinking out loud, if you have a Heavy Duty necessity (e.g. the 5 kids scenario), nothing substitutes PPF. One or 10 layers of nano coating, wax, sealant - you name it - not even a fraction of what a PPF provides.
And again - Might be just me, but I do not trust a ceramic coating can provide meaningful scratch protection. Very convenient for marketing to visualise the coat as a "protective layer", but a few nanometers of layer (wax, sealant or ceramic) can in best case provide some chemical protection + hydrophobic effect. Glad it works for you, placebo or not.

But you said it right - every person's experience is subjectively different. Which is why I am missing an objective test.
For what we know (and I am sure this will be the case), a ceramic coating might be better protecting against some contamination/damage, whilst wax and sealants may offer better protection against other. Just knowing that a ceramic coating "appears" and is advertised to be better is a good starting point, but not enough (for me), especially when expected to rely on a long-term protection from a single application.

This is one of the reasons I personally have chosen to rather do waxing 2-3 times a year (also taking into account that the waxes seem to stick nicely on my 2 cars for waaay longer than 1 month).

All comes down to personal experience and beliefs after all.