The ELS is a decent engine. But ... As with most things in life, you have to provide a frame of reference when you ask a question. I cannot give you a "yes or no" answer because you need to better define what your "needs" are for the mower.
Are you doing commercial mowing, with the intent of being in dusty places often, with long operational duty cycles? I would contend you need as much mower as you can afford, including high-end air filtration and possibly liquid cooling. If you have the expectation of a rough lawn, the TigerCat is built very heavy duty. (Example: I have the former Tiger Cub which morphed into the Cat. I use it for personal home mowing, but I have a very rough yard because I live in the country and it was formerly a large cow pasture before it was my homestead. I chose an air-cooled KAW with the multi-stage air filtration. My mowing cycles are reasonably short at about two hours per week, but the dust can be bad at times, and the lawn is rough. Hence, I need a strong chassis, good air-filters, but don't need liquid cooling).
If you're doing a personal estate mowing job, and only going to use it occasionally for perhaps several hours a week, with a low-dust exposure, then I see the ELS engine being a perfectly viable option that will last you a very long time. Also, the Freedom is not quite as heavily built (as far as I can tell) as the up-scale models. A "normal" well-manicured lawn would present no issues to this chassis, but rought stuff would perhaps beat it up a bit over time.
Like about everything else, there is a choice of tools for every application. First analyze your needs, then narrow down your choices.
