How Elite Were The Elite?

OR, to put it another way, what proportion of an ancient army should be regarded as above average?

In Neil Thomas's biblical rules in Ancient & Medieval Wargaming, armies have eight units, each classed as elite, average or poor.

The number of elite units can vary a lot.

An army from the pre-Solomon Hebrew list, for example, will have one or two elite units, both being bands of auxiliary infantry.

But an Egyptian army can have four elite units, namely three squadrons of chariots and a band of Sherden.

That means half the army can be elite, which to me is way too high a proportion.

It gets even worse with Thomas's Assyrian army, which can have six elite units, ie 75% of the army.

I mean to modify army lists for future conflicts, but I will stick with the ones in the book for the upcoming battle in which we will use the book's suggested army compositions and deployments for Hebrews versus Egyptians.