Funny thing is, few weeks ago I would have said that all the “oh, few years ago it was so much easier to get to elite” is just whining of people with low sales who are looking for an excuse. This was said when I started here as well, and there are items with over 2K sales that have been released in the last year from new non-elite authors and I have regularly made the experience that it is only the quality of products and your niche that decide if you will have success here or not.
But with the new sorting, all these people are correct now. 
Guess we were lucky to be one of the early ones.