If hall effect sensors used for the thumbsticks do what they say (no drift) then maybe they do. I have v1 and v2 elite controller and both have bad drift. The v2 is so bad it's unusable so I use the v1 and just deal with it because I refuse to ever spend another penny on a controller that is just gonna drift again. Hopefully MS will adopt this for all controllers though.
Ive had both my Elite controllers since the day they released and I have not developed drift on either. The rubber grips peeled off the V1 I had only a few days before the V2 came out, but I just got replacement grips for it. I dont use my V1 much anymore, but my V2 gets really heavy use and its still fine. I am either the luckiest person on the planet, or the issues aren't as widespread as people make them out to be, and its just the people with the problem posting about it (as the people with no problems rarely post and generally have no need to).
HE sensors are nice but they are more expensive and are not immune to developing drift. Over time, the ferro-magnetic material used in the sensors can lose or change their polarity, which can cause very bad effects ranging simply from inaccuracy to inversion. Also, HE sensors are much more susceptible to temperature, and may underperform in areas of high or low heat.
While generally I might assume HE sensors would be better for a joystick, Microsoft has spent a lot of time and money on the R&D of their controllers. If they decide to use HE sensors in their next controller, then they feel the potential downsides are minimized enough or the performance to cost ratio is better. If they don't, then HE sensors aren't worth the cost of using them. Manufacturers spend a lot of time and money in R&D making sure the total cost of their product (including potential warranty repairs they have to do for free) is as low as possible. If they felt the stick drift was expensive enough, they would have done something about it. But since they still use the same modules, the total cost must still be lower than using HE sensors.
Have you tried tightening them? I was noticing a small amount of drift in my v2 and just tightened it a little and it feels a lot better.
Only issue I've got now is one I've had on a lot of xbox controllers which is the left bumper not registering all the time. I think it's because of where I press on the bumper it eventually causes it to break over time, I actually replaced the bumpers on my old core controller once and it had indeed broken at the spot where it presses down onto the button on the mb.
Reminds me of when we'd go over to play local co-op games with friends when we were kids. The guests always got the shaft with the half working mad catz controllers and the probably broken turtle beach headphones or other lesser-babka gear. Good memories, though :)