Having some gold, silver, rhodium stacked away is a prudent diversification that helps people feel less stress when economies and fiat currencies become volatile. When everything else goes to hell (real estate, stocks, baseball cards, etc.) metals usually go up. It gives comfort to know that part of your accumulated wealth is helping, to some extent, balance the losses you are experiencing elsewhere.
My preference is gold and silver Canadian Maple Leaf 1 oz. coins. The silver coins have a $5.00 face value but considering mining and manufacturing costs, they should never get that low. Still, at least there is a floor (in case somebody snags a 1000 ton asteroid made of solid silver someday.)
As far as doomsday scenarios, I think the point is that some type of money is essential when bartering goods and services, and if the fiat (paper) money becomes undependable, the fallback is precious metals. Whether that scenario will come into play in our lifetimes who knows, but it's nice to feel at least a little bit protected.
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