User blog comment:Western Gen/Speculations for Season 13/@comment-4616231-20141003230559/@comment-5746209-20141004165553

I personally think it's for both reasons, Wes. As you said, Charon Industries is only shown to mass produce specific Armor Enhancements (cloaking and the hardlight shield), so seeing if they can reverse engineer the more "powerful" enhancements the Meta obtained from his armor is possible. However, instead of sending it to a lab to do so, the Chairman sent it to his trophy room. Some would argue that he just wants to keep it near him while his scientist work on it, but I don't believe so.

You see, the UNSC has already confiscated the Brute Shot, which is arguably more iconic then the Meta's helmet, so it's likely the Chairman also has it as well. I believe nightfire was correct about the Chairman using the Meta's armor to have him appear more in the series. Charon is shown to specialize in cybernetics (Demo Man becoming a cyborg for example), so it's likely he plans to not only have some of the enhancements on the armor mass produced, but wear it - with help of cybernetics - to fight against the Blood Gulch Crew with the enhancements it already has. As you stated, the Meta is a symbol of terrifying power and destruction. It would be a perfect scare tactic against them, as "Meta 2.0" would lower the planet's hope of winning.

Then again, maybe he doesn't plan to wear it and have somebody else do so. Hell, some speculate they plan to make a clone of the Meta as the Halo series has been shown capable doing so (though they don't have a long life span). It's not something I would be completely behind, but I would prefer it over having the original Meta surviving.