There’s a chapter on the Farnsworth work and the spinoffs.
Dr. Bussard was very skeptical of any ultimate success for magnetic confinement, regardless of how many billions were spent, basically because the problems scale along with the other dimensions.
His Google presentation, about an hour long, was riveting. He showed both eagerness and frustration. Clearly he knew he was running out of time.
One of the main advantages of electrostatic confinement is that the target positive ions are drawn directly into the fusion area by its electric potential. In fact, they oscillate back and forth repeatedly until they collide. If they can collide at the correct angle and with enough energy, you will get fusion.
I'm confident that the problems can be worked out, or acceptable compromises developed. Remember, break-even may be the energy goal, but any production of heat can be useful.
Even a pulse design, using standard magnetic coils for brief periods, rather than superconductors, could potentially provide sufficient energy for some applications, though such would not be suitable for community electrical production.