I think too many people are under the opinion that an AR has to be surgically sterilized in order to run reliably, and as a result some have developed cleaning routines that border on ritualistic. I don't spend a lot of time immaculately cleaning my AR's, and have not found that they've functioned any less reliably as a result. Pat Rogers (who knows a thing or two about carbines) wrote a great article a few years back entitled "
Keep Your Carbine Running" that argues for the same approach, and it's an exceptionally good read for those who own and shoot the AR platform.