Stat boost and penalty elements are level 4 elements but they can be put on any level of the grid. From what I have read, there seems to be no penalty for putting them on level 1 compared to level 8. If someone has found out that there is indeed a difference, that would be interesting to hear too.
But, my real question is: When you consider the usefullness of the best stat boosts and penalties, what element level they should actually be? (Numble, for example, is already useless for players because at best it drops enemy's evasion by 1 from those rare enemies that have evasion slightly higher 0. So, please consider only the better ones.)