I'd go the other way: make 'em tougher, but reduced them to, say, three spawns of two w/o respawns so when you've handled them, you've handled them, but if you don't handle them you end up with a bunch of them...kinda like VoD devils.
The problem isn't the efreeti exactly, but the queen. Every time you stop to deal with an efreet, you risk getting run over. Since they just respawn, there's no point in continuously taking that risk if you can just have them chase a rabbit.