Re: They won't fly again
tell that to the thousands of comets that never flew after teething issues,
Err, look at the production numbers of jet airplanes since the Comet came on the market.
The Caravelle (1955-1972) sold 202, the Boeing 707 (1957-1991) reached 858, and the DC8 (1958-1972) sold 556. After these, numbers sold started increasing.
So one might be tempted to say that the market for jet airliners wasn't exactly huge for at least the first ten to fifteen years since Comet, and stating that De Havilland would have sold thousands had they not had two of them rip open during flight[0] sounds to me to be somewhat optimistic. And the largest part of Comet sales was post 1952 anyway, so airlines weren't exactly shunning them.
[0] not even directly attributable to their mode of propulsion, although that allowed flying higher, putting more stress on the fuselage skin. The Lockheed Constellation (and the Boeing 307, but only 10 of those were built) had been using pressurised cabins for a couple of years already without problems.