OK, next question...

I have a pair of Rockport brogues that I bought somewhere around 10 years ago. They're probably the most comfortable pair of dress shoes I own, due to the softness and pliability of the leather. But they've always been a real challenge to polish. I can get a decent shine on the toe and heel, but the rest of the upper just seems to reject polish. I've tried building up layers of wax over the years, but within an hour of wearing them, they just seem to shed all of it off. So I've sort of given up on trying to keep them polished, except for the wingtip area and heel. And even then, the lower sides (wings?) bend and flake all the polish off.

As you can see below, the leather looks pretty bad on the non-bulled areas like the vamp (some of which is old residual wax that probably just needs to be stripped off). I'm kind of at my wit's end with trying to make the entire shoe look polished and tidy. Does anyone have suggestions on what to do with this?

I've read about shell cordovan needing a different procedure for polishing, but I honestly don't know if this is shell cordovan or not. These are not high-end shoes by any stretch of the imagination, so I doubt they have shell cordovan on them, but I just can't explain why they won't take a polish like my other shoes.