Val, I agree with you. I think that two things are grossly, maybe even profoundly, wrong with the system as it is;
a) a very low bar as to what constitutes "educational benefit" for a child. Does this include completely bogus things that have NO proven benefit in anything resembling an unbiased study? Often, it does. So spending $$$$ on things which have no real proven benefit is certainly wrong. Those dollars are not unlimited, and what we spend here has to come from somewhere.
b) gifted ed is special ed. I wish that the Feds would step in, here, and define it that way for once and for all. Just as with special ed students with lower-than-average ability (or specific challenges), their educational needs are not met by "average" educational offerings. Those gifted students have many more things in common with SpEd than with the middle two-thirds of the distribution; we can sometimes (but not always) meet those needs in a regular classroom with interventions/differentiation, the students need something different from their unaffected classmates, and they are an "at risk" population if their needs go unmet. Call it what it is and mandate it. Special Education. That would really cut down on the number of parents looking to spout lofty-sounding labels to all of THEIR friends, too, and therefore fewer bright-but-not-gifted kids would be shoved/coached into GT programs.
That's my opinion, though.
