A paraphrase of one of your points: Can't a person spend time with people who share her interests and not be an elitist?

Yes, of course. But what happens to our opinions of others when do this? For instance, a chess player, say Bobby Fischer (perhaps not the best example), who associates mostly with other fantatical chess players, begins to think, over time, that non-chess players are "backward." Elitism. It's in human nature, but we need not endulge it.

Actually, I came from an academic environment which breeds elitism like a fungus, and I spent most of my time with people of the same background, and with the same interests. It had a baleful effect on me, with which I'm sure you'll agree. :)

Again, it's inevitable that people split into groups. But when you begin to attach a sort of mystical superiority to the group to which you belong, you are under the nasty spell of elitism. I caught some of that in Elinor's judgements of other characters in S&S.

I've enjoyed Elinor and Brandon, even though I think one is too proud and the other a melancholic. If they marry, they will not invite me to the wedding, no doubt :) The joy of a novelist is to create characters with numerous flaws and seduce readers into falling in love with them, which, judging from the posts in our group read board, qualifies JA as a genius.