OK, I'll tell you my staining process tell me what you think and if you have anything to add.
Let's start with a red oak floor (15+years old) that has 5+ coats of poly and maybe a golden oak stain. I 36 and 60 with the big machine, 60 and 80 with the edger, Scrape corners and heater machine with a 80. Then buzz (orbital palm sander) all edges with 80. Then UFO with an 80 screen , vac, tack and stain (hand and knees), Oh I forgot tape baseboards. First coat after stain is a walk on, 2nd coat gets hand sanded (entire floor) with a 220, Last coat gets buffed with a 180 screen
I heard of people poppin the grain, I never done this and the stain jobs come out pretty dam good, Do you have anything to add, Thanks
Steve

Look, there's no magic recipe. You do what works for you. Keep it simple. I always look for ways to eliminate redundant, uneccessary steps. I will say hand sanding an entire floor is a bit archiac. What's wrong with using the buffer? And I never bother masking off baseboards. If the paint is a oil based enamel, the stain will wipe right off. If the paint is a latex enamel, masking tape just bleeds up into the paint anyway. So either factor in baseboard repaints OR be VERY careful staining against those baseboards and don't get stain on them. No need to get into water popping unless you need to go very dark or real white or you are staining some difficult wood, like maple. If you want, I'll will walk you through the water popping process but not on this forum. You will need to pm me.

That's exactly why I posted this. I'm going to save the tape, I have another stain today. The reason for the hand sand I'm worried about the buffer burning through the first layer of sealer/poly.Thanks for the reply.
Steve