How so? What makes Erlang more functional? And how is Erlang simpler for you?
A big part of the renaissance in programming languages come from developers leveraging rock solid VMs such as BEAM and JVM. It enables developers to have the expressiveness of dynamic languages and without sacrificing performance or scalability later down the road.
In the case of Elixir, many feel that it adds some innovative language features like the pipe ("|>") operator and metaprogramming facilities that ease many of the pain points with Erlang. I'm not an expert in Erlang but there are quite a few notable Erlang developers that enthusiastically support Elixir (including some nice words from Joe Armstrong).
I'm not arguing with you but curious about your thoughts. Looking forward to the next installments in your series.