Classroom segregation benefits?

I've read a few brief reviews of the heterogeneous vs. homogeneous classroom settings for gifted children. Basically, should we segregate the children? What are the benefits of each?

Generally people who fight for segregation say that specialized classes can more effectively meet the special needs of both normal and gifted children. Special classes can move at a more appropriate pace, or learn in the manner that gifted children do (for it is different), or delve deeper into subjects the students grasp more easily than the average. What I've inferred, based on my own feelings upon finding all this information about how gifted individuals work, is that such a setting can also provide support for the other, non-academic needs of gifted children. It can inform them of what is "normal for gifted", which has two benefits: it confirms their suspicions that they are unlike other children while pointing out their own individual gifts, and reassures them that although they are different, they are not strange.

Upon learning more about my condition, going through the feelings similar to acceptance (finally!) in the previous paragraph, has made me disregard almost all arguments for keeping gifted children in regular classrooms as very minor benefit for the other students, at the risk of damaging the gifted child. Such benefits are often stated as positive role models for normal children; increasing the grade average of the classroom by somehow making other students succeed more; and tutoring normal children.

Now, at this moment, I am reading some of these same arguments but somehow it clicked differently. In Spherical Trigonometry (already with a reputation as being a challenging class which scared off more than a few), I spent much time tutoring and helping various individuals. This was new material to all of us (and indeed to anyone in a generation or two), yet I grasped some things quite quickly and moved on the help others. It gave me quite a boost in self-esteem. In a positive way, that filled my much-wanting and unmet need for recognition. So perhaps that is a viable argument. But it will only work if the classroom and lessons are designed to allow such activities. If the gifted student perceives the work as entirely unchallenging and repeating what she already knows, she will be bored and unmotivated, and may perceive those who do not yet understand as unwilling or inferior. If the child appreciates the concept to be challenging in some way, she may want to help others do the work to understand as she did.