It is normal to buy Elements just to test if it is really sufficient for someone (I did that for Wavelab). If it is not enough, one can buy the upgrade (in my case, Wavelab elements is enough, so I will stick with it. No need going Pro at this moment).
No need to do that. With Dorico you get a 60 day free trial, which includes all versions, so you can compare and contrast for nothing.
Nope it’s not the same thing, the principle of a sale is have a rebate and to save money and as well not to be permanent.
The principle of having tiers is to either fit different needs or, for those who can’t afford the higher tier, to incrementally get there over time (I was in this situation actually).
What you say makes absolutely no sense, everyone then would just buy the lowest tier then do the upgrade then no one would ever buy the highest tier, which paradoxally would create a loophole and would not justify such a high price for the higher tier, but lowering it would imply lowering the upgrade and so on…
Sales are made for this, you just wait for them and take the opportunity to pay less, they are frequent enough and they often occur at the same periods of the year with Steinberg so there are really no reasons to complain, just wait for the next one, I did that when I was on Elements, it’s not the end of the world to wait a few more months 
Yes, but with Steinberg demo is not available with the release (it is usually later).
Another use for the upgrade is when someone need to pay for the full version but not as single payment. Licenses can become expensive, and this is a method to distribute payment to different months. I did that to other software before (I live in a poor country, so currency conversion can be too much to handle as a single payment).
It is better than going to the piracy route.
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There’s no point in testing PRO if I want to find out whether Elements meets my needs.
You can start PRO as Elements or SE.
That’s good to know, thanks, but how does it work?
I tried pressing the alt key before starting the program, but it does not work in Windows
On Windows shift-alt for Elements and ctrl-alt for SE.
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It’s simpler than that - hold down Ctrl when starting Dorico for Dorico SE and hold down Alt when starting Dorico for Dorico Elements.
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I’ve just noticed that there is an upgrade discount from free Dorico SE to Elements (75 euros for the upgrade vs 99 for buying Elements directly). What’s the catch here? Why is it more expensive to buy Elements immediately?
It’s true that it does effectively allow anybody who wants to buy Dorico Elements to do so at a discount if they first try Dorico SE, but surprisingly few people trade up from Dorico SE to Dorico Elements, so we use the special upgrade price as a way to try to persuade those free customers to become paying customers.
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This is exactly what I did. The discount prompted me to move to Elements and I am happy that I did. Now I am just waiting for a similar discount to go Pro. 