Elite visa definitely the easiest but hard to justify such a cost when you are so close to 50.
If you want to go more cost effective try to arrive on the longest tourist visa you can get then convert to an education visa for Muay Thai then you can which to Thai language education visa.(assuming you are actually interested in attending these classes)
I did this last week, only went to Hong Kong for a few days and returned. They didn’t ask me anything, but I did go through the Thai citizen immigration Que with my Thai gf.
Also, this might be anecdotal but from my experience the male offices seem to be more chill than the females.