I was in the gifted program at a public school. ... This was easy for me to accept, because honestly the curriculum was a big nothing. No challenge whatsoever. Also my peers in this program didn't seem especially smart to me.
I'm not worried that you are being 'elitist' here - this is exactly the marker I use to define 'Highly Gifted.' Almost word for word. LOG exists. The Valentines Day Unicorn may be imaginary, but LOG is real, and influences people's daily experience.
PG kids also feel like the identified gifted kids aren't especially smart, but this doesn't seem to be the defining issue for them in the same way. So one can't use this to differentiate HG from PG.
Smiles,
Grinity
