I certainly would not knock Whittle - he had to battle official indifference to succeed in getting to a stage where the engine was practical.
He was also a clever man in that he had already been working on Axial Flow,Turbofan and Reheat.
But he rightly concentrated initially on the centrifugal engine because he knew it would be a practical proposition.
An engine with a working life of 15 - 25 hours TT would not have been put into production in this country,in fact it may never even have been bolted to an aircraft LOL