It depends what System of Maintenance you're operating under. Some aircraft do not require a daily inspection.
Your 172 or Warrior is more than likely operating under Schedule 5, which clearly states..
"1.1 An inspection (in this Part called a
daily inspection ) must be carried out on the aircraft before the aircraft's first flight on each day on which the aircraft is flown."
...system's of maintenance (as opposed to Sched 5) are generally used by larger aircraft and give a lot more flexibility. So instead of a daily inspection, there might be a 24 hourly inspection, which means the aircraft can be Daily'd at 7pm, fly through the night at a number of stops and put it to bed at 7am, without the need to do a Daily before the first flight after midnight. It will also detail what items are being carried out in the inspection (remember this is actually maintenance you're performing!!) it's not simply enough to say it looks like everything's attached and in one piece, there are a number of items that have to be checked, and you are certifying that you've checked all of them.
There are all sorts of exemptions scattered through the CARs and CAOs that allow you to fly with some items unserviceable. For example there's a blanket exemption for "passenger convenience item". So if the inflight entertainment system is broken in 13A you can still go (but if there's an IFE in the cockpit so the pilots can check it's working... it's not a passenger convenience item and grounds the aircraft).