Actually, Elixir did add the bells and whistles to Erlang, sort of. That is pretty much the whole point of Elixir.

I assume OP meant that Elixir is a purposefully small language. It taps into a lot of functionality in Erlang without necessarily re-implementing it. There isn't even a wrapper around the Erlang :sleep function.

Well to be honest there's a lot of functionality in erlang you should probably forget about (like the :http and :tftp modules).

Not to hate too much on erlang, but I would say that beyond being small, as a pushback to characterizing it as "bells and whistles", Elixir brings to the table "21st century" understanding/opinions on what makes for readable and maintainable code (build packaging, first-class documentation, module organization, file types, strings, map-focused vs struct-focused, sane function parameter ordering). As a result, I can confidently onboard a junior into Elixir (especially if they were in a RoR bootcamp) and have them be productive. I probably wouldn't for erlang.