Appears to me most cruising boats I see out there fire up the engine when winds are light.

We don't use ours much anymore. I don't think I used it more than two or three times last year. Most of our sailing is daysailing, and so we reach out and back, back and forth. When we go on extended trips it seems we're either reaching or beating most of the time. When we want to sail deep I don't bother to hoist the spinnaker unless we think we'll need it for at least half a day. It's just too much trouble otherwise.