Hey Deb!
I get a lot of the why from reading through all the threads, and it may be a better general list. It's just no longer the Elysian Drop troops as written by GW.
We worked hard to get things accurate to the background with the v1-3 lists based on what was published in the IA books. Each list was built upon the previous incarnation, a lot seems to have gone out the window though as this list has taken completely new directions. Yeah, I'm pretty passionate about this topic/list as we put a lot of hard work into those lists back in the day (they weren't perfect by any means though), so don't take any of my feedback personally.
There are some things I could definitely get behind though in your changes
- bigger formations, makes some sense to align with other lists
- fixing the teleport rule, I agree needed to be done
- increasing numbers of sentinels in a group, given the history of Elysians relying heavily on them
- special weapons platoon (P.S. you unit statistics page doesn't include special weapons troops line item, maybe you meant it to be the Elysian Support Squad)
Things that I personally don't see a need for (or solved differently perhaps)
- static AA platforms being part of a airmobile force
- Special Elysian Strom Troopers (no other IG list has special storm troopers, no need here, just use normal storm troopers)
- making up new units with no canonical background (Grey Ghosts). I wanted a pathfinder unit back in the day (somewhat similar to what you have here), ultimately we didn't include it because there was no background supporting it. Being the list moderator/creator is tough...you want certain things, but also need to abide heavily by the background.
- should just be two sentinel versions (as that's what their IA list calls for) - A support sentinel with rockets, and a drop sentinel with either MM or Bolter option. Scout sentinel has no existing background to support this being here.
- no armor, this goes against everything the list itself is
- not having the Valkyrie option for the basic formations is also a core piece of the Elysian force, it absolutely must be an option IMHO, without it we've stripped away a big part of their identity (arguably the biggest).
- Valkyries should be valkyries...again, not a special version.
- back in the day your artillery came from the Valkyrie rocket pods being able to put a lot of BP...were they perfect and always available, no since they were so short ranged at 30 cm...but that's what the background supports, and the existing rules for rocket pods, so we just had to deal with it. No spotters with off board artillery (no other list has this, again, why are the Elysian's special here especially with no canonical support we can point to in the background). Now I would agree, this makes practical sense given how real modern day troops operate...but it would also make sense in other lists as well, and it's not there, so shouldn't be here.
Elysians also make heavy use of Melta guns and demo charges, while being very short ranged, a lot of their AT should come from this as that's how the list sort of worked - drop in close, use those things to take out armor....if it didn't work, you were up the creek! Their special weapons support should be based on these things (I'll need to double check my IA8 book again).
A lot of the Elysian concept comes from the paratrooper/Vietnam era air cav. From that perspective, artillery support would likely come from an orbiting spaceship bombarding units with BM right prior the air landing force arriving. Logically this would apply to other lists like drop pod deploying space marines as well.....
I guess my big ask is to go back and advance the v3 list, more than drastic rewrites that the v4 list is currently. V1-3 you can see a logical progression of development, V4 is something completely different. I say this mainly as someone who has walked this path before in developing those lists alongside Honda and others.
P.S. - majority of people in the poll you ran voted for no AA, but it was still added? Why solicit feedback then throw out what most people think is the right direction? One or two people were more vocal about having it, and that seemed to win out over the majority vote, which doesn't feel right.