With all these descriptive terms, like "elite", it depends a bit on what you put into them yourself, but Palffy was definitely an upper echelon talent, though obviously not on a say Jagr type of level, or even a Bure or Selänne level.
But it's funny if you've seen those old photos of Palffy in juniors where he wears #68 and sports the exact same mullet as Jagr. He looks just like Jagr, except the size.
Perhaps if he had Jagr's size, he could have been really dominant. But I guess you can play that hypothetical game with most players. Size comes with both pros and cons, and you need to be able to adapt your game accordingly.
But I always found Palffy way more offensively well-rounded than countrymen such as Bondra and later Gaborik. He couldn't just score goals, but make plays and drive a line properly as well. I would also prefer him in front of someone like Gartner, fairly easily.
If the thread question was "Was Palffy more elite than Gartner?" then I would say, yeah, he was.