I've used orange pads to remove minor defects with great results. However my neighbors (sp) dog took it apon himself to try to jump through my driver side window leaving some nice deep scracthes on my otherwise perfect paint. So needless to say i needed somting with a little more cut then what orange was doing for me. I used a wool pad and some Opt. compound which has a long working time and finishes down really well. well no swirls per say but holograms abound. so some opt. polish via white pad and pinnciles AFP via gray pad = LSP ready.
Guess what Im trying to get at if you need to get some deeper inperfections out and dont have rotary, dont think your pc can't do the job. Just be prepared to spend some time doing it and choose a product that finishes down well and use the step down process

happy detailing.
Oh and if your trying to get minor inperfections out and the orange pad isn't cutting it i would suggest stepping up the polish before going to the yellow pad. not that it wouldnt work, just time consuming to have to polish out any haze or swirls.