Personally I do see the Elven Gods as "Gods", or at least in the same "God" category as the Maker. I don't think they are all-knowing and omnipresent though, just some great and powerful beings that got mixed up in the origin of the world and got worshiped by different people.
Generally speaking, while Maker seems to have some pretense to be all-knowing, all-powerful and perhaps omnipresent, elven gods never aspired to anything of the sort. They're gods, not "God but more of him" (which would be stupid, I don't know of any polytheistic religion that would actually try to present its gods as omnipotent). They're explicitly born from the world, their title as creators doesn't imply creation of something from nothing. Basically, they're presented as powerful, generally benevolent beings that looked after the elves, and they are explicitly stated to be learning about the ways of the world (though that comes from modern Dalish legends, hard to say how it was presented in times of Elvhenan); Dirthamen and Falon'Din pretty much discover how the Beyond and afterlife works, and Elgar'nan brings down the Sun and then he learns that - ooops, the Sun really is important if we want things to, well, grow.
In a way, Dalish seem to look up to their gods more like they would do to parents/teachers/older siblings (in the most general meaning possible) rather than beings as fundamentally different as the Maker is compared to mortals - and that's after two thousand years of passing down old tales, something that would be generally most likely to further distance mortals from gods rather than bring them closer.
Basically, the question of elven gods divinity is a question of "what is gods" more than "do they fit the definition". Tevinter Old Gods are supposedly "not created" (I'm not sure where this comes from, but I'm certain I've read about them coming from outside Creation), but elven ones are explicitly part of the world, if the world was created by someone, they automatically were too. If a god is supposed to be something fundamentally different than mortals - they're not gods. If a god is a powerful benevolent being somebody revers as such - yep, gods they are. I'm pretty sure that if a Dalish were to believe this whole story about Andraste and Maker, he would call the former a human goddess and the latter - who knows, perhaps he would avoid lumping him with gods at all, seeing as it's a being on yet another level of existence.
But I do agree completely with the things you said in my quote. The elves are too passive at times and too impulsive at other times. They lack leadership, lack sustainability, lack the balance of ambition and patience and action. The world was and still is harsh to them, but it's not the world's fault that they got devoured piece by piece because they dwelled in anger and self-pity too much. In ancient times they were probably ruled and protected by their god-kings and they were fine, but god-kings are never good because the people can't really aspire to become them. The people never grew enough to be responsible for themselves, so everything cracked when the god-kings were gone. Now they are still waiting for their gods to come back and lead them, and this is not healthy. Having their gods would help, but what they need the most now is a king.
I think you miss the point, really. The Dalish don't have a king (or any other governing body) because it's decisively impractical for their way of life. Thy're nomads, they live in countless small (a couple hundreds at most, usually more like a couple dozen people) clans and those clans are VERY different, they pay lip service to those same core beliefs, but I bet every clan has its own spin on them. We know some clans are pretty much wandering bandits, others are extremely reclusive, others yet trade and interact with humans on regular basis. And that's just one aspect of them. I bet there are Dalish traditionalists (we need to find and preserve lore), progressive Dalish (we're the elves, we live NOW, we need to build on whatever foundations we have, not just repeat old tales and excavate ruins) and stick-it-up-your-arse Dalish (we're good as we are, why would we settle and trade our freedom for walls and a roof). I'm pretty sure we heard of a clan that uses elvish as its everyday language for internal communication while we also hear that Dalish never reconstructed their language. The only conclusion seems to be that there are at least two elvish languages: that half-recovered "pure" one and the everyday "modern dalish", most likely with lots of words just created when needed, or borrowed from human languages (which can be seen as keeping the language alive by some and desacrating it by others). Despite all the kinship they feel, they're a single nation in the same sense Free Marches are: enough for them to stick together, but much too little to actually unite in foreseeable future.
And as for their gods/god-kings making elves unable to self-govern now, that is simply not true. Elves did create, pretty much from scratch, a powerful nation - Dales, that lasted almost four hundred years (that's about as long as united Ferelden exists), and they were destroyed in a war with Orlais that could've ended the other way - Exalted March was ultimately succesfull, but the Dales did actually conquer Val Royeaux (despite EM already being in effect). Dales fell, but definitely not without a fight and old elven fortresses still stand as a testament to the nation's power at its peak - all this without any god-kings 
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