I like ddevans secondary idea provided the counters are reduced by 1 per turn at the beginning of the turn.
To answer the poll in more detail:
I have been reviewing all the creatures in the game to improve Phantom Fox's formula.
Using the improvements
Balanced Cost for a para elemental is
Unupped: 0 (attack) +0 (0<HP<6) +1 (Generate 1 quanta) +1 (Generate 1 quanta) -1 (Cross element quanta) +X (Secondary skill value) = 3
Unupped: 0 (attack) +0 (5<HP<8] +1 (Generate 1 quanta) +1 (Generate 1 quanta) -1 (Cross element quanta) +X (Secondary skill value) -1 (upgrade) = 3
X=2
So all para elementals should have a secondary worth 2 quanta. (With the notable exception of some elements but they would just get a 3 quanta skill. [
])
So if all the skills are worth 2.5 or so then it would be uniform.