An Elite greeting is hit or miss now even on NZ metal so not getting one on VA is no big loss.
The differences have always been huge and not getting any better. With VA's new 'premium economy' seats on TT VA Platinum's can pick these for free. VA still won't answer as to whether Elite's will have access to these, but one can assume the answer is a big no.
At least out of AKL you have a choice. For those of us elsewhere there are routes that are 100% VA so there is no way to avoid them without flying via AKL. As much as I love flying, traveling via AKL and taking twice as long to get to Australia is just dumb.