When my wife smiles because of something I did for her, the warm feeling I get does not resemble the feeling of status elevation.

The fact that she chose you as her partner, instead of other potential candidates, gives you some status (not relative to her, but relative to all other real or imaginary candidates). Could this play some role in your feelings from her smile?

This is even more relevant in the case of, say, a stranger thanking me for holding the door -- I don't know them and don't really care what status they assign me.

A stranger thanking you for holding the door confirms that you belong to a set of polite people. Not everyone is in this set, and people in this set have higher status than people outside of the set.

You are right, a clear definition of status is necessary, otherwise pretty much anything can be "explained" by status. But I suspect that if a meaningful definition is made, it will allow transactions of type: person X is increasing status of person Y without decreasing their own status (by decreasing status of someone else, for example an unspecified absent person).