was attributed the description 'a load of bananas whirling around'.
Heh, it's not surprising these things were considered the ugly ducklings of their time. They, particularly the GE36, look adorable to me though.
but with substantial risks in terms of the counter-rotating LPT, variable-pitch fan blades
Explain? If you're talking about technological limits didn't we already have counter rotating, variable pitch turboprops decades before the propfan? The Tu-95 comes into mind.