Well I am not going to buy Elite visa anyway. I am not long enough in Thailand. But if I would want to stay 5 years straight it is an acceptable deal. I pay much more taxes in Switzerland.
Furthermore you said you know how and where to grease the palm right?
So you are probably using bogus visa like volunteer visa. Or you make other use of corruption to get things done.
Well they are cracking down on bogus visa now. The palms to grease getting smaller and lesser.
If you want to do everything legal and straigt the Elite visa is a good option.
Corruption is not really an alternative you can compare here.
As to if they will change the rules for Elite and no refund I cannot say and would not dare to