Elevated on Eglinton West would likely be uglier than those Vancouver pictures because those Vancouver streets are much nicer to begin with. They have trees, flowers, are narrower, an have buildings come up to the street unlike Eglinton which has buildings much further, if at all.
However, does it really matter if it's uglier given that it's not a very pretty street to begin with?
Having said that, the question is: is the benefit of elevating (or putting underground) worth the extra cost?
The primary benefit is that the transit vehicle won't have to stop at traffic lights. The possible secondary benefit is that you can use heavy rail trains which continue along the GO tracks down to Union (and east then north onto Scarborough), if you choose to do so like in the SmartTrack proposal.
How big of a deal is not stopping at traffic signals? I would argue that it's not a huge deal on this stretch of Eglinton, because the traffic lights are far apart and with signal sync, the transit vehicle has to stop there anyways. The delay here by traffic signals is likely not a very large delay. This is my opinion based on driving through this stretch of Eglinton.
Looking at the cost, elevated is much higher cost than at-grade, both because of the elevated structure, and the stations themselves. Look at the stations in Vancouver, they have staff, elevators, escalators, they are essentially subway stations. If you do at-grade LRT, you can have a simple stop without staff or any fare gates. There's no disadvantage in terms of dwell time since it's running low floor LRVs with POP. Therefore, if you're designing a transit line with more stops, LRT is that much cheaper.
My personal opinion is: I'll wait until the feasibility study comes back
