Because it takes a great deal of research, engineering, time, and money to reduce what is essentially a quick and dirty science experiment into a rugged, reliable, portable, instrument. Designing such things is what I do for a living, and it is complex and time consuming.
The article is full of "golly-gee", "gee-whiz", "look how neat and all the other scientists missed it", when in fact the technique is well-known and used for other things. The thing that made this possible is that the group who observed it had a new, more sensitive detector that previous groups who had looked at the effect did not have. Very probably that detector requires liquid nitrogen (or helium) cooling, and is nicely practical for use in a research lab. Getting it to work in the Iraqi desert at midsummer is a whole other animal.
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.
>Very probably that detector requires liquid nitrogen (or helium) cooling
Sensitive detection of 705nm may require some cooling, but not that much.