Vanquishing in HM needs made a bit less painfull!

You quite summed how to vainquish hard mode. Before thinking about pawning any mobs, you must make sure you will survive. Really active mass party protection, trough wards, aegis, Shields up, watch yourself, Paragons, HEal party, are quite essential in HM. Bringing 6 SF eles will only ensure you a quick death. An Unsteady ground geomancer coupled with a blurred vision hydromancer and a blinding surge Aeromancer will do quite better.
For eles/rit bosses, you KNOW they will wipe you. So, you need a sweeper-puller-tank. Ultra preprotted so he survices his pull, and the party can safely position themselves to, if they die, they are alone to do so. (Yes, people HAVE to be acoordingly positionned when facing those bosses to avoid mass wipe!). Any kind of disruption (generally Broad head arrow, but many other forms of disruption, especially KDs, are also powerful) is then really useful.
You have also to build acordingly to the ennemies. Bringing no disenchant in, say, areas where there are shiroken elementalists, is the best way to ensure a quick wipe from Sliver Armor.
I don't know people, Guildwiki is here to inform you on the mobs/boss you will encounter, once you know this, and plan your team accordingly, I find HM even easy. You've just not to make any error. And even if you do so, that only result in some DP. (That you remove through scrolls at the first death in your group).
I would advise, though, not to do HM with Heroes/henchies. That's why you find it difficult! Just find ONE pal, and the rest with heroes, and you will find HM ridiculously easy.

I see your point and it is well made (despite all the idiots saying you're just whining - even though you're obviously not). This is a very valid concern and anet even stated that some areas / missions, etc ARE overpowered in HM and will be "balanced" at a later time. We need people to point these areas and parts of hard mode that are over-powered so they CAN get a look at them and balance them. No they're not going to make it easy, but they'll make it do-able.

Sadly thats doesn't work. Searing Flames eles can live with 5 set skills. Searing Flames, Glowing Gaze, GoLE, Meteor Shower, Fire Attunement. Leaves them space for a res, and 2 utility slots. If you have 6 SF eles thats 1 hell of alot of offence, combined with the ability to give a few Wards, maybe 1 or 2 Aegis, maybe a spare Prot Spirit, etc. Or of course you just drop 1 and bring an MM. And of course, they will get very far.
Me and a friend have been some vanquishing recently involving 3/4 SF eles, 1/0 MM, 2 Monks, SS (him), Smoke Trapper (me). The SF eles deal with destruction and basic defence. The SS/Reckless/Enfeebling deals with basic melee shutdown and group ownage. The traps deal with everything if lured properly leaving a half dead mob covered in conditions been spammed with Searing Flames (i've never seen 10 Stone Summit w/ 3 Dolyak Masters die so fast). And the best part about traps, they're highly defensive and can become highly offensive too. Scatter them leading to severely hindered mobs or stack them leading to a very dead mob. I managed to trap bomb 5 of Sunreach Warmakers casters with H/H after he wiped us the first time in an overlure. 2 of the 5 casters died, the others soon followed. If you use it well, a highly offensive build can be extremely defensive too. I did use to rely on SS/MoR Dom heros instead of my 2 SF eles. That was highly defensive and lead to enemies commiting suicide through hexes.

About Rit/Ele bosses. Yes, you KNOW they can wipe you instantly, but agro can shift in an instant. While henching Archipelagos, i killed Ssyn no problem. Then onto the Ele boss. For the first 60 seconds of the fight things went well, we killed off all but 1 Saltspray in his mob while the agro was focused on me. Then suddenly he turns around and Dragon Stomps the backline killing half my hench instantly. 20 seconds later we're back at the Res Shrine, absolutely nothing we could do about it. Even with the Spirit Henchman using Shelter. Its all very well saying that you can try to control agro, but the moment it shifts your stuffed. And thats nothing compared to the Searing Flames Djinn boss in Forum Highlands...

I quite find SF eles ineffective in HM. And the first reason is that elemental damage is completely hampered by the tremendous armor the mosters have. Just try to throw a liquid flame on a HM kurzick warrior under Watch yourself. You'll be ashamed.
What is powerful in your build is not the 3 e-management skill devoted to keep casting SF, its Meteor Shower.
And meteor shower is powerful not because of the damage it deals, but because of its very powerful multiple AoE KDs.
Knowing this, you could just bring MS with 0 in fire, just to benefit from this AoE KDs over time! And use your three other skills in blinding flash and chain lightning and orb/hammer.
You chose in your team to bring a smoke trapper (uh?) and a MM.
With a ranger and a MM as main characters, so many other options are better than to fill the rest with eles, seriously.
The first is to bring a cross curses/blood necro, with order of pain, Blood is power, and the rest in Anti warrior skills like Meekness and Enfeebling blood and Barbs and Mark of Pain. Then bring a parangon for party heals, high DPS (benefiting from barbs and orders), e-management, and physical buffs (like anthem of flame and GTFE). Then bring rangers with barrage and Concussion shot to keep burning and damage, with also GTFE to buff minions attacks. Then bring a cyclone axe warrior which will be your main puller-tank, while still dealing great damage, with defensive shouts like Watch yourself, None shall pass, Shields up.
The big advantage from orders and barrage and attack skills the warrior have is that it deals armor ignoring damage.
You could also bring derviches, but too many of their enchantments switch their damage to elemental.

I played a SF ele in HM, and was quite disappointed by the damage done, for the cost of it. The damage came mainly from burning. That's why I toyed with Air, where damage penetration spells are invaluable.