First off, Simon, your answer was spot-on in answering Jarrod's questions with logical, proven answers. Props.
However, Jarrod is asking for anecdotal advice, so here's mine:
In practicality, you can actually often get away with a lot of carelessness. The problem, though, is this: while the risk is low, the stakes are fairly high. I absolutely hate pouring out bad brews. (Luckily, I've never had problems with sanitation.)
I have, however, made a lot of dumb mistakes, and gotten lucky. Once, I dropped my screwdriver into the wort while it was cooling. The temperature was below 85°F, and the screwdriver, being a screwdriver, hadn't been washed in the decade I'd owned it and heavily used it. I was sure the beer was ruined, but followed one of the big rules of homebrewing: carry on. The beer turned out fine.
During my first brews, I would clean and sanitize bottles, and at the end of bottling, I would have leftover sanitized bottles that I didn't need. More than a dozen times, I filled them with beer the next time around, without resanitizing. It's probably safe, as I put the bottles into 12-pack bottles, closed the flaps, and little bug-carrying air flowed over and through them, but really, why risk it? I ended up changing my ways after I made my first gusher.
There's no need to be obsessive about hand-washing/mid-brew resanitizing things that have only touched air, but you should recognize possible contaminants (food, pets, etc.) that could ruin your day.
And there's no need to sanitize things during final cleanup, if you were considering it. Just mix up a few gallons of sanitizer on brew day, and take care of it then.
What it really comes down to is this: you're pitching 100 billion cells of yeast (or more if you make starters) into wort and your store-bought yeast is a direct competitor to anything that might have made its way into the beer incidentally. It's fairly unlikely that a few cells of bacteria or wild yeast have a fighting chance.
That said, it's by no means hard to spoil beer. Use your head, and sanitize per recommendations. After all, why risk spoilage over a few simple steps?