So gifted children routinely grow up with few or no peers, and consequently few or no friends; and then everyone is surprised and blames them when they have crappy social skills and no friends.

Do you have sources for this? Because everything I've read suggests that gifted children do as well, if not better, than average children in terms of social interaction. Most of the literature I'm familiar with suggests that socially awkward geeks are about as valid a trope as mentally ill artists - which is to say, confirmation bias means we notice examples of those, while the more prevalant counter-examples fly under the radar.