Elders are judgemental and busybodies that tend to meddle into people’s private lives without having been called to, or even without the person permission.
Priest don’t need to agree with everything the Vatican say, some of them have their own personal opinions on many issues. What you tell a priest in confession stays there between the two of you. They tend to be more merciful and understanding than elders, usually they ask you to say a few prayers and give you some good advice but in the end they leave the final decision to you, they are not trying to control you or make you feel bad by taking away your supposed privileges like if they had any authority to do so.
With elders you are effectively going through a court process and you will be judged by some men that if you knew better maybe you would have no much respect for, as they may have much worse sins than yours.
Finally Priest leave jws alone, their job is not to look for arguments with people from other confessions, they tend to be very busy doing charitable work, or helping people in any other practical ways, basically they are not trying to prove to the witnesses how well they know the bible because they don’t need to.