Why a rotary valve? My guess is that Harry is in risk-averse mode. He's spent the last decade on the ego trip of being the "ingenious inventor", and has failed in a very public manner. His brainchild, the Mark 5, will never work. Can never work.
The OSU people made the WHE sort-of work with a rotary valve. If Harry puts a rotary valve on the Mark 5, it will sort-of work, too. If he tries to engineer a new valve himself, he might fail spectacularly again. It's much easier on the ego to use the OSU rotary valve design and claim "success" when an engine sort-of works. (OK, when an engine can turn its crankshaft without a load...)
I think it was you that said earlier that Cyclone would have been far better off buying old steam engines at antique auctions and rebuilding them. The shareholders sure would have been better off.
If there is any silver lining to the Cyclone fiasco, maybe more people are thinking about modern steam power.
