User blog comment:Xilinoc/Ch. 601 - VERGE ON VERMILLION/@comment-5551986-20141018185700/@comment-24913480-20141018211804

You may have a point there. It seems far too early for the elites to die. Yhwach is confident they can at least put a dent on the Royal Guards (soft them up a bit) and their letters sound powerful. However, I think the reason some people might not give them much credit (including myself, for now) is that they are fighting the Zero Division, the five most powerful shinigami in existence. The hype they have is huge so, off course, it's hard to imagine these elites, that just showed up, can really put up a decent fight. This may very well change in the next chapter.