Chuck,
This is not directed only at you, so please don't take it personally.
It never ceased to amaze me when players continually refuse to protect their hand. It happens at every level of play.
Once while dealing a no limit game, the player in the 1s was not protecting his hand. At least 4 times I reached over, took a chip off of his stack and placed it on his cards. Each time I asked him to please protect his hand. Don't worry, he still didn't protect his hand. A few hands later...after the flop, he looks down and his cards are GONE.....disappeared into the muck. Trust me when I say that I did not muck his hand on purpose. He claims, and I have no reason to doubt him, that he flopped quads. It WILL happen to you sooner or later if you don't take measures to protect your hand. It can be an expensive lesson.........

At a poker table, all 10 players may have different habits. It is impossible for a dealer to memorize those habits. I try to err on the side of caution. Typically when the action gets to a player and his cards are unprotected, I will slowly take his cards and often I will ask if he is folding. The answer invariably is "if my cards aren't protected, take them". That's all well and good until the coctail waitress is taking his order, or he is watching the horse race or ball game on the TV. In short, I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't.
We (dealers and players) both are responsible for protecting your hand, but it is YOUR hand and YOU should be primarily concerned with protecting it. I can't tell you how many times a player will be involved with a hand, but will get out of his chair, for whatever reason, and leave his hand unprotected. To me, that hand is screaming MUCK ME, but to the player, he may simply getting a rack, or asking the floor person to change the channel or chasing a coctail waitress or whatever.

I DO take my job seriously and I do regret it when I muck a hand that the player didn't intend to muck, BUT I am way beyond beating myself up about it.

Rule #1: A player is responsible for protecting his/her hand at all times.