I agree with most of what you say, except for the part about the detector. The article states that the standard issue night vision goggles is enough to detect the effect.
The only question is how expensive/rugged is the green laser.
That "might" work under highly artificial conditions (like shining the laser over an open bottle of the explosive, and exciting the concentrated vapors) but I guarantee you that "standard issue night vision goggles" will NOT be sensitive enough to detect explosive vapors in the real world at the much lower concentrations under which they will be present in the field.
"The only question is how expensive/rugged is the green laser."
No, the real question is how expensive and rugged the detector is. Believe me, I "know" about this stuff. We were attempting to do infrared fluorescence (the proper term for "photoluminescence")when I was in grad school back in the late seventies. The detectors back then were just not sensitive enough.