When Cleaning Records with...

The vacuum removal of fluid provided by a record cleaning machine will improve your results, but is not absolutely required. The key to using the Disc Doctor Miracle Record Cleaner solution, and most others, is very thorough rinsing. (And the more pure your rinse water, the better your results.)

If you use a double rinse, and blot well after each rinse, you will still have some residual from the cleaning solution left in the grooves, but that should clear after a couple plays. A vacuum RCM improves the results. (Keep in mind that any groove damage already present will remain after cleaning.)
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You don't need a record cleaning machine. Some records will never be rid of surface noise, even records that look clean and glossy. If used records were played with a less than quality stylus or with a cartridge that was not properly aligned, the groove wear will not be visible to the naked eye and no amount of cleaning will remove the surface noise created by it.

I cleaned a record the other night (VPI 16.5) and when I played it, I couldn't believe how much better it sounded - never heard it sound that good. After I took a better look, I realized I cleaned it with distilled water instead of record cleaning fluid. I had cleaned the disc with Disc Doctor Miracle Cleaning Fluid probably a week before (last time I played it). I never rinsed with distilled water before but now I do as the improvement was pretty incredible.

Yes, you need a record cleaning machine. You just don't need an expensive one.

I have found that record cleaning is fine to do (does anyone realize that most of one's entire life is cleaning--house, car, self, etc.) however, I found that proper cartridge setup with a good cartridge is far more important for the cleanliness of the final sound event.