I would agree that Elephants seems useless in EB.
They can even be easily killed by Arkontisais, peasants without much trainning. As there are always a lot of javelins in each army, there is no way to use them. I know that it is intended that javelins should be used against elefants, but historicaly I don´t think that peasants can wipe them out so easily as in EB.