I agree "defunct" here is unnecessary and inconsistent with other articles (eg Betamax, VCD, SVCD, even Capacitance Electronic Disc though the latter does use past tense.) The term "defunct" was added as an attempt to placate those who kept changing the tense of the article from "is" to "was" - but that "compromise" ignored the fact those doing so were actually fairly blatantly trolling. 

 It's also worth noting that Channel 4 still intends to distribute two more movies in the format, Trainspotting and Shallow Grave. LG still makes and sells the BH200 and BH100 combination HD DVD/Blu-ray players according to their website. There's obviously not going to be some big come-back for the format, but it's incorrect to suggest it's defunct. If people are still releasing the odd disk in the format, and people are still making players, then it's not defunct. Niche, yes. Dying, perhaps. Defunct, no, not really.