Earth definitely needs something better, I like the stone henge art by kobisjeruk much better than 2 or 3.
Life 2 was quite good actually, but the background from 3 is outstanding... definitely 3 looks perfect, but the pillar from 2 with 3's background would also look great.
As for fire, adding the 'torch-tower' thingy definitely helped, but I have to agree that the marks should be replaced or removed. The fire from 1 looks quite good still... I guess it could be used if only the background was replaced.
As for aether, I quite like the 3-rd one, but vrt's art is also good. Aether is quite a hard element to imagine so I guess that might be problematic, but I personally like the way it looks right now.