It’s shorter to say (4 vs 6 syllables), and to write - how is that ‘no gain’?
To this day I don't know what Eli8 means, and I'm not going to even bother to look it up. It's not communication.
My first guess would have been a username for somebody named Elliot. Given that it occurred in this thread, probably not a correct guess.
I think where we differ is that I see such abbreviations as no worse than any other - TLAs (three letter acronyms) can also be as impenetrable.
It's most pronounced in aye-ate-een-en, internationalization is a word I find myself stumbling when saying in full.