3D printing techniques are becoming more and more relevant to manufacturing. There's plenty of shapes that you simply cannot make with a CNC mill - RF wave guides, topology optimised brackets etc. Additionally, there's materials which are uneconomical to mill - principally titanium.
The main issues with selective laser sintered titanium as a manufacturing process are speed and surface finish. Speed is increasing, and people are making progress with surface finish. CNC milling (which is an incredibly wasteful process) is just a small development from traditional manufacturing processes. 3D printing is the disruptive technology in the room.
For very high scale components stamping and injection moulding will almost certainly remain the most cost effective manufacturing process. For lower scale stuff (especially weight concious things like aircraft parts) SLS 3D printing will almost certainly start to dominate the market in the next few decades.
I have extensive experience with both CNC milling and 3D printing. I feel that 3D printing is disrupting Product Design/Development vs. actual Manufacturing. Anyone with an idea can now make functional prototypes and proofs of concepts with the click of a button. As you wrote, in perhaps 10 years time, we will be able to get the size and surface finish from 3d printing required to make limited production parts that have certain characteristics (weight, shape, containing reentrant angles, etc) not feasible from CNC milling/turning, etc.
The main issues with selective laser sintered titanium as a manufacturing process are speed and surface finish. Speed is increasing, and people are making progress with surface finish. CNC milling (which is an incredibly wasteful process) is just a small development from traditional manufacturing processes. 3D printing is the disruptive technology in the room.
For very high scale components stamping and injection moulding will almost certainly remain the most cost effective manufacturing process. For lower scale stuff (especially weight concious things like aircraft parts) SLS 3D printing will almost certainly start to dominate the market in the next few decades.