For most of us, the reality was that our status as relatively studious kids created a situation where our area of greatest need was social-emotional development, not intellectual development. Gifted programs mostly served as easy, almost dismissive solution for our parents, who would rather see our very real social-emotional challenges as further evidence of our intellectual excellence and the importance of separating us from our peers so they won't "hold us back."
Quite the opposite. Being in class with my friends is what kept me emotionally grounded, and being separated from them, in a way that sends a clear message to everyone involved (including me) that it needed to happen because I was somehow too good to be in the same classes as them, did lasting harm. Even now my lifelong best friend is obnoxiously deferential to me on all sorts of subjects because he sees me as "the smart one" instead of a more sensible perspective like "the one who happens to enjoy math."
But I did move around as a kid enough times to see a few different ways of doing this sort of thing, so I can say with certainty what does work, and it works well for everyone involved: flipped classrooms. It's magical. In a group where kids who have mixed skill levels on a particular subject are asked to support each other instead of competing with each other, they do just that. And I can say from experience that it's a much better way to make a classroom more challenging for kids who do better in that subject. Helping your peers understand a tricky subject is a much more interesting intellectual challenge - and builds more useful life skills - than an artificially "accelerated" learning program ever will be. And it's better for long-term learning, too, because it helps build even stronger foundations of understanding.
And I am also seeing, now that my kids are in a school that uses flipped classroom teaching, that it's better for everyone else, too. My younger child, who has been having trouble with reading, gets an immense amount of value from being able to pair with friends who are stronger readers.