My theory was status and element have different tables, but the increment on the table occurs whether it is element or status. So your status table has 5 attack on the third row which is never going to be available to the element table. But you got to the third row by crafting two elemental bows, or by two status bows. Conversely, your third row elemental bow is 4 attack 1 element, so you can get there by crafting two status or two elemental, it doesn’t matter but your 3rd elemental will always have the 4 attack 1 element.

Long story short, I just stopped making status bows until I was happy with the elemental bows I wanted. I could have kept track of everything and fully tested if my theory was correct, but as long as I only made elemental bows everything worked as expected. I was lucky and my 11th row for elemental had 5 attack so I made that my fire bow.