"3 base attacks is the maximum any player can get to by any means. After combat rounds have been established other effects can increase this - harah lit rune, criticals, extremely high skill, etc. Recently I've done the tests on average attacks per round, and fighters using whirlwind are one of the, if not the single highest average attacks per round."

Hmmm... It sure doesn't FEEL like it, after going from Paladin to Fighter. But I'll take your word for it. \:\)

"I've done no checks for duration. Nor have I spent any time determining the effectiveness of skill level for whirlwind attack in particular. If pressed, I would venture a guess that raising skill raising duration is enough of a boost that raising effectiveness further beyond the ceiling for attacks per round was not thought of as important."

Well, if 3 attacks is actually the base limit, which I have no reason to doubt if you say so, then I'd agree. Though I dislike the extreme randomness of the duration, and that even after spending 8281 devs on it, I can't use it continously more than... very rarely, if I am lucky. The breaks between uses is still annoyingly long. How many devs would you think reasonable to have to spend to be able to use it continously?