I have been able to find last year's
silver elite G06 in CSL here and am comparing it to
this year's Gold G06 here. Only three of the 8 teams in Silver Elite last year played in Gold the next year.
1. Socal Academy went to SCDSL the next year.
2. Empire SC returned Gold
3. Oxnard Pal returned Gold
4. FRAM Nunez G06 is gone altogether
5(tie). South Valley returned Gold
5 (tie). Eagles went Silver Alpha and lost all their games, meaning that team probably lost key players
7. FC Golden State went Silver North and finished lower-middle
8. FRAM Gidney went to SCDSL
It seems like at least those that were not at the very bottom got promoted to gold. The only one I question if it was involuntarily relegated was FC Golden State in 2nd to last, but that could have been voluntary because it seems like they should have at least been allowed to stay Silver Elite rather than Silver.
On the other hand, only 3 teams accepted promotion to gold (and there were only 6 teams total in the group!). One went undefeated in Silver and went far, if not all the way, in playoffs. Another finished at the top of another Silver Group. And the last one, no idea where they came from (FC Valencia?) - and they finished the season without any wins. There were 4 Silver groups, and only two teams appeared to be promoted to gold from them.
Conclusions:
1. Most of the teams in Silver Elite will be promoted to Gold in Gold's first year.
2. Hard to get promoted to Gold directly from Silver.
3. Quitting CSL and going to flight 1 in SCDSL is a thing that exists.
4. CSL should stop being so stingy with the Gold. SCDSL's model of giving everyone "Flight 1" status for free seems good for player and team retention.