That's a hard question.
E16 might just be a good (unique) sales pitch for Elive but would surely require a lot of direct input by the e16 devs to be as good as e17 was in 3.0.6 IMO.
So frankly, despite my first animosity to e16 ....... I think a lot is to be gained there too.
On the other hand: E17/e22 is easier to configure.
So actually ........ I propose both (if we get sufficient support from the devs) or keep e16 for the 32bit (extra light) version.
This is getting off-topic maybe we should start a new thread on desktops now that the system is relatively stable.