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Well, in layman's terms, OptiCoat (and products like it) and paint sealer are the same compound, acrylic (polymerized methyl methacrylate, to be exact), applied at different thicknesses. OptiCoat is applied thickly, so care must be taken to get the thickness even or it might set with visible ridges. Paint sealant is also acrylic, but applied thinly so there is less worry of misapplication. Acrylic is partly polymerized, so it forms a relatively hard coat that remains flexible enough not to crack when the sheet metal flexes. It's about the same hardness as polyurethane wood treatment.
The reason the websites for the manufacturers are confusing is because this business is completely unregulated, and the manufacturers can say, literally, anything they want about their product, and other's products. For example, most of them make claims about being a ceramic coating, or a glass coating. Complete BS. They add finely-ground sand to increase the specular reflectivity to the coating, but the sand adds no hardness properties (the same way aggregate adds no hardness to concrete), yet they will advertise the coating as "ceramic" to make it sound like something truly scratch-proof. It isn't. It still scratches just like a plexiglass window. Exactly like a plaxiglass window. It's the same stuff.
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