Absolutely on the bent elbows, relaxed and loose grip, totally crucial to long term comfort.
re width, with drop bars my early Japanese touring bike 1990 era, had stupidly narrow bars, partly because of the times and probably because of smaller stature Japanese people. Now I'm slight, plus I didn't know any better, but years later when I got a newer dropbar bike (cyclocross bike) with wider dropbars, only then did I realize that wider waa much much nicer.
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I think narrow bars on drop bar bikes used to be a thing. My 1961 vintage Italian racing bike is size 59cm, so it is a larger frame size but came with stupidly narrow bars.
Most of the drop bars I buy now are about 44cm center to center, or maybe 45. They are wide enough that my bar end shifters are clearly out to the side instead of at risk of knee strike on my bar end shifter bikes.