Please explain your your self when you say it's rare for big tribes to do well?
Well, in a mass-tribe are more members
(hello mr obvious 
)
Lot of members means more chances on having spies.
Having spies allmost allways destructs mass-tribes, while in elite, if you have a spy, you can easily track him down.
Offcource, not every elite is better, but when an elite-tribe is under good leadership, an elite is 24/7 active, you only have few members, so you protect every member automatically for own safety, a member less does makes the difference so the coöperation works better.
Allso, trying to get on top with only 20-30 members is much harder than with 67 members. So the motivation is bigger, which results into more individual activity.
Forums aren't a mess, so you have the best possible overvieuw on what's happening.
Elite has more controle about the people they recruit, so there will be more % experiënce allso.
Mass-tribes mostly ask support CONSTANTLY, so you weaken yourself more. And what do you like the most?
A tribe where everybody could take someone on its own, and helping these players, or waisting troops to a player who finally will get nobled anyway?
Finally, there's allso the fact that you immediatly spot inactives, and can replace them by better members, and once your elite is finished and you achieved the members good enough, planning goes much smoother even then mass's...
There'll sure be even more advantages then this about which I'm not thinking at the moment...
