I picked up one of the early beta Philips SL18's (the first compact fluorescent with integral control gear) from Mullard in Torrington Place. They were available for about a week, I think towards the end of 1980 (I might be able to hunt down the paperwork). They were free, but you had to fill in a questionaire and try them in a number of places. Philips actually took the trouble of writing a personal response back, answering the issues I raised on the questionaire. I don't know if they did this for everyone.
Mine started smelling of burning polystyrene, and they wanted it back to investigate, but they sent me a free real SL18 a few months later when they started manufacturing them.
It was still working in 1984 when I accidentally left it behind in a rented house. I still have an SL9 (working but not in use) and an SL25 (at my parents' in a standard lamp). However, these are more recent, as it was some considerable time after the SL18 that other power ratings were launched.
At that time, there was no choice. Electronic control gear was too big and to expensive. Philips did always intend to use electronic control gear eventually (that's in their letter to me), but they didn't want to delay the product until electronic control gear became viable.
Thorn Lighting launched a competitve product which they had been working on before Philips; this was the 16W 2D fluorescent tube. It came with a ballast which plugged into a standard BC lampholder. With the ballast and 2D tube being separate, when the tube died, you just replaced that (and it included a glow starter in the tube base). The Thorn Lighting 2D product was shorter than the SL18, but with the tube fitted, significantly fatter. That often meant one could be used where the other didn't fit. The 2D tube remains available today and has grown in popularity to many power ratings from 10W to 55W, and 4-pin versions too for use with electronic and dimming control gear. GE (who bought Thorn's lamp division) stopped making the BC adaptors around 10-15 years ago, but the 2D lamp is now used in purpose-designed fittings. Its large flat shape makes it particulary good for designing high efficiency lighting systems, and it seems to suffer slightly less than most other compact fluorescents from dim starting. I use it quite a bit in light fittings I've designed and built.
SL18 (and original 2D) did indeed have a standard glowstarter in them. A glow starter will outlast very many tubes (and of course, the compact fluorescent only gets one tube!). What kills glow starters is leaving them trying to start a dead tube for days on end, as happens in commercial installations, so it's common in commercial installations to replace the starter when relamping (as the starter cost is nothing compared with relamping costs).