Won't make an useful engine? Maybe for some Star Trek fanboys. It'd be the most useful engine ever to anyone grounded in reality if it doesn't need reaction mass
Lead time is a barrier of business. If I can get my goods to any customer anywhere in the belt in less than 30 days instead of many months, it's very valuable.
You're thinking about "[no] one", I am thinking about deliveries for millions of customers per trip. We're talking about a literal warp engine, this is not near future. There will be hundreds of millions of humans in space when this engine is production ready.