I got thinking about it today at work, Elves might actually be playable close to Toady's vision (it will be easier in the next version), but still be interesting and capable of fending off a siege, with a few mods.
- Some variation on the Growable Wood Mod (2.5 season tree plants, that provide food/booze/extracts, with reactions to convert them to logs and seeds)
- Some kind of special Elven plant that can be reacted to 1 or more wooden metals (MATGLOSS_METAL:BRONZE_WOOD or IRON_WOOD or STEEL_WOOD) that acts similar to named metals for damage and protection (for weapons better than the base 50% wooden ones) and maybe gems (say Amber or Resin)
- allow CARPENTER (but no WOODCUTTER), ANIMAL_TRAINER, FURNACE_OPERATOR (you need it for the smelter), WEAPONSMITH and ARMORER (for the wooden metal items), most or all of the farming jobs, ARCHITECT, maybe a few others.
- you would need some kind of work around to get the fire safe material for the smelter (wait for the dwarves/humans to sell you some? some type of wooden pick?) and the fuel to power the Forge for building weapons and armor (burning plants?)
- setting up farms/buildings/stockpiles in the forest might be hard with limited open ground (split biomes forest/something), that first year is going to suck (until you get something to make the smelter with).