Personally, I love to use the |> pipe as much as possible, even in the view.
Something like
items
|> List.map viewItem
|> Element.column [ Element.spacing 8 ]
Seems very normal to me.
I also use <| but rather rarely, trying to keep it at a minimum. I try to use it only for math or for type conversion:
Element.spacing <| toInt <| 17 / 4