I cannot agree more with Ian B-B's post above. "Ten-hour-itis" probably got rid of more potentially promising pilots in the RAF than the Luftwaffe ever did. I suppose that wartime conditions demanded some sort of financial restraint but I'm sure that in many many cases it was a false economy.
I personally manged first solo after 8 hours 15 minutes but that was really quite an arbitrary figure for although I was immensely proud of myself I didn't know whether my backside was bored or countersunk.
I went on to have a long flying career of over half a century and I taught pilots to fly aircraft from gliders to DC-10s. I have to say that the "slow starters" often turned out to be the best operators.