I agree. I believe that OTP releases for systems (aka services that need to run continuously), and escripts for CLI tools are the way to go. Maybe there are some special cases, but can’t think of any.
I wouldn’t say that eager loading is the primary value, although it depends on the use case. I suspect that many systems are not that highly loaded for that to make a difference.
I do think that the defaults you mention, which allows remote logging and start the system as the node (so you can remote observe it) are more important.
But above all, I like the self-contained, isolated nature of the release. You won’t pickup some unexpected module from somewhere else (e.g. mix app is not included in OTP release, so less chances of invoking Mix.env at runtime), and you can easily run multiple different systems (services) with different versions of Elixir/Erlang.
I also agree that the cost is marginal. But even if it takes longer to properly setup your own build and deployment, it’s a one-off cost. Pay the price once, reap the benefits many times 
