I picked up my Element III last August after realizing my DAC/amp setup at my desk was very frustrating. I wanted to go with JDS Labs over its competitors for JDS's excellent post-sales support and reliability track record, and I like to support US manufacturing whenever I can. The Element III's main advantage over something the Atom stack seems to all be in quality-of-life improvements. You get one box on your desk instead of two, aluminum construction instead of plastic, the auto-high-gain feature and OLED screen, digital volume control, and the big knob.
With the Element III, I don't have to think about source gear for a very long time. I've had no issues with my Element III with a range of devices: my Windows work laptop, my personal Mac, my iPad, and a WiiM Mini. The big knob is especially useful for controlling the volume of the Kali IN-UNFs I recently picked up.
For what it's worth I've heard that JDS will offer you an off-menu Element III with even more power available if you email them kindly. I've only ever switched into high gain once, and that was with for a headphone with an EQ preset that had a whopping -12.5 dB preamp on source material that had a low volume to begin with. The Sundara, which is the most power hungry headphone I have right now, has never been switched into high gain even with the -7.5 dB preamp I run to add the Harman bass shelf.
I've added wireless streaming support to my Element III by hooking up a WiiM Mini to the optical input on my Element III. This is a little cheaper than the EL DAC II+ and EL AMP II stack once you add the BT board to the EL DAC II+, and you can still effectively have a one-box solution on your desk by taping the WiiM to the underside of your desk as I've done.
The WiiM Mini also allows you to mix analog sources with your Element III. To get decent audio quality from my Xbox, I feed the 3.5mm output from my display to the WiiM, which then goes to the Element III to be outputted to either my Kalis, or my headphone.
P.S. John if you're reading this I will happily upgrade my Element III if you make an Element IV that includes 10-band parametric EQ built-in where I can upload profiles via an app, like the Qudelix-5K. I don't need all the pro audio features of the RME ADI-2 and it only includes 7 bands of EQ.