While ceramic coatings do enhance the appearance of the paint surface and certainly offer much improved protection over conventional waxes or sealants, in my experience, they seem to offer relatively little in the way of scratch resistance.

I do understand the "Pencil Hardness" scale and how ceramic coating manufacturers use it (9H, 10H, etc.) to boast the "hardness" of their product. I also understand that no manufacturer is claiming their product is scratch-proof. However, I struggle to see a vast improvement in a surface's resistance to scratches coming from what most would consider "normal wear-n-tear. Things like towel scratches from wipe-downs or other similar scratches and marring.

Like I said, no manufacturer is claiming its product is scratch proof, but I am not impressed with the scratch resistance I am seeing thus far.
While proper wipe down procedures are always necessary to minimize any scratching, I kind of expected more protection from how most (non detailing) car owners would care for their car. By far and away, the evidence of this is most apparent on jet black paint. No mental flake or metallic, just pure black. I am frequently seeing cars with typical toweling scratches all over.

It would be one thing to see a few cars here and there with some scratches and chalk it up to either improper coating installation and/or improper after care by the vehicle owner, but in my experience, the vast majority of cars I see (in black) have almost as many fine scratches as any other car, or slightly less.

Anyone else seem to think the scratch resistance implied by ceramic coating manufacturers is not quite as good as they would have you think?

As for the other characteristics of ceramic coating, so far so good.