Yeah I think you're right about Elysium being restricted to the great heroes, same thing with Tartarus too. Being a douchebag wasn't enough to get sent there - you really, really had to piss off one of the gods to be singled out for that. Everyone else derped around in Hades as a shade, I think.

It did suck to be dead in that mythology, lol. If I'm remembering the Aeneid correctly (which is roman, but you know, same difference), he goes down and does a tour of the underworld and the great heroes are all like "Dude, I would take just one day of being a normal peasant again rather than being down here." Now Norse mythology had the right idea. Valhalla was infinitely cooler.