are the elite really so elite ?

After reading a article on possible rating inflation it made me wonder would the elite GMs be so high rated if they played more "out of circle" tournaments basically tournaments where its not just between them. Usually I would say yes without a doubt but after doin a little self research of people who have reached beyond 2700 then fall below it again are most often the 2700s who actually play in other tournaments instead of just the Major ones. Hikaru Nakamura has played in other minor rating events in his past and displayed that he deserves his 2700 rating but those events didnt even have anyone else above (2550) so even thats questionable. What do you guys think ?

If they played with lower rated players, maybe their ratings would fall a little, but I don't think it would be much.  Maybe their ratings would actually go up since nobody could beat them.  :P

The elite weren't always elite.  After beating the crap out of 2nd tier world-class GMs in their teens, the soon to be top 10 players started getting invites to the top tournaments.  It's not as if they've never played other GMs.

Two examples that come to mind are how Ivanchuk fell a few hundred points and almost out of the top 100.  He kept on playing and went right back into the top 10.

Kasparov gave simuls against 2500 rated GMs.

What an interesting topic. This is like asking, "So uh...Michael Jordan would lose if he played college basketball right? I mean, those guys are good and he is good, but this way he isn't playing against just people like him, right?"

Nah man, Elite's are there for a reason. Even assuming their ratings were inflated at all, that would cause other ratings below them to inflate via a simple chain reaction (of the same logic). So they'd still be Elites, though perhaps Elites at 2600 instead of 27.