Whinge may be evocative, and in common use Down Under. But here we are in the good old U.S.of A. and I have to ask whether authors (in other than a purposely vocabulary-building environment) should choose words that need to be looked up when there are close-enough synonyms that readers will recognize. Isn't one of the functions of an editor to advocate to the author on behalf of the reader? Is the writer's goal to celebrate the diversity and texture of language, or to communicate? Or have I been unduly Strunked and Whited?

I too looked up whinge. Wouldn't it be better copy-editing to use whine, which no one would have to look up?