As you say, Chomsky was only interested in material forms, on the model of biological and physical systems. From that perspective we can perhaps see why he considered the ‘immateriality’ of meaning to be outside the purview of linguistic science.
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[1] To be clear, the term 'material' was strategically added by Rose in order to make his next point. What David Banks actually wrote was:
On the other hand, it is true that all language is expressed in a form, so it is valid to study form: it is the notion that there is nothing other than form that I believe to be mistaken.
[2] To be clear, Chomsky's theorising of language was Cartesian in its orientation; see, e.g., his Cartesian Linguistics (1966). Cartesian dualism makes a fundamental distinction between two mutually exclusive substances: res cogitans ('thinking thing') and res extensa ('extended thing'), the former being that of an immaterial mind.
Chomsky's theory of language is concerned with the immaterial mind (res cogitans), not with biological or physical systems (res extensa), which is why he couches the theory in terms of knowledge of language rather than language itself, and why he takes intuitions about language (instances of knowledge) to be data for theorising, rather than texts (instances of language). This is also why he has resisted Pinker's attempts the couch the theory in explicitly biological terms (res extensa), even to the extent of denying the importance of Darwin's principle of Natural Selection.
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"even to the extent of denying the importance of Darwin's principle of Natural Selection."
Not just to the extent but even beyond. Which leads Micheal C. Corballis in his book "The Truth about Language" to refer to Chomsky's hypothesis of the origin of language as "Language as Miracle". Because of its fundamentally anti-evolutionary perspective.
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