Well said Tourist.
I've no professional connection with HAV (a few friends and former colleagues working there only) and have never worked on airships myself. However, I've studied them quite a bit, simply because I find them very interesting.
In my opinion, the mainstream role of the airship ended with the creation of long distance airliners like the DC2. However, that doesn't mean that they haven't had a useful off-centre role, and can't now and in the future.
During WW1 and WW2 non-rigid airships had a successful role as submarine hunters. They've had occasions in recent years as relatively lucrative advertising platforms, and they've done bits of worthwhile science - spending long periods following whales or monitoring wildlife in forest canopies. It's all niche, but that doesn't make it worthless, or financially unjustifiable.
There are some obvious downsides of airships - they're easy targets to hostiles, slow, don't handle bad weather very well, and a bitch to divert with. They have limited payloads, and it's very hard to manage rapid changes in payloads. On long trips, they have problems with rainfall, and with changes in ambient air density.
However, they also can stay airborne for very long periods relatively cheaply. They can potentially carry small, sensitive payloads for those long periods - and modern electronics expand the range of such payloads that can usefully be carried.
That said, I think that the performance being claimed for the Airlander to the US Military probably was snake oil - it doesn't match my understand of what a modern helium airship can do. However, it is entirely reasonable to expect a body as large and well resourced as the US DoD to do their own review of the capabilities of an in development system that they're funding.
On which basis...
(1) In my opinion, the snake oil salesmen were probably inside the DoD.
(2) HAV has a potential future, it's a small future, but it can have a role, and it has potential to make enough money to be viable.
Best of luck to them. Many aircraft projects fail, of all sizes and shapes, so - this one is certainly vulnerable. But, I don't think it's destined to certain failure.
G