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I got out of officating BB about 2 years ago, after many years and told the father that I had never heard of anything like that
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I have to admit that this statement above makes me suspicious. The reason is because you say you officiated basketball for "many years" and you don't seem to have a grasp on the confusion the official might have had between calling a technical foul and a flagrant foul. Had you worded the question something along the lines of "did the rules change with regard to flagrant fouls that aren't considered punches or fall within the definition of fighting," I could easily gather you did officiate for many years, as you are familiar with the rules here.
In other words, absent asking a SPECIFIC QUESTION about whether a rule has changed, you should know exactly what the official did and whether he was correct or incorrect.
The answer to your question is two-fold: 1) elbows to the face (or anywhere else) can easily be considered flagrant fouls and thus warrant a DQ (ejection in Fed rules are for coaches); 2) The official probably misspoke when saying the contact wasn't flagrant and that it was an automatic technical. He could have been inexperienced, read the rule wrong, been misinformed, or a number of other things. He could also have simply incorrectly stated what he did or what he called. I've done that before, usually when I'm thinking of something else while responding to someone.