Who should shop at Goodwill?

I take our family's unwanted recyclable household items to Goodwill, and when doing so I stop in to find occasional treasures (especially terrariums).  I have read or been told two quite contrasting viewpoints on whether middle-class and affluent persons should shop there:

a)  When people shop at Goodwill, their purchases support the business and thus provide work for a variety of employees who might have difficulty entering the conventional retail workstream.  And purchasing those products prevents them being shredded, dumped, or shipped to the third world.  Or...

b)  Goodwill's clothing and houseware pricing is designed to accommodate the budgets of low-income demographic groups.  Middle-class and affluent shoppers should buy new items and leave the bargains to those who really need them.

I don't have an answer, but I did see an interesting article in the StarTribune today re how thrift stores are upgrading their merchandise and their services:

When the recession started, middle-class shoppers such as O'Dell flocked to thrift stores, many for the first time. Now Value Village, Salvation Army, Goodwill and others are getting creative to keep those customers coming back.

In addition to offering personal shoppers, some secondhand stores are bringing in new merchandise, stepping up their advertising and adding loyalty programs. And all of them have literally cleaned up their acts, by remodeling their stores and raising the bar on the used merchandise they sell...

Salvation Army is buying overstocked items and returns from Target, Wal-Mart, Costco and others. Recently, area Salvation Army stores sold flat-panel TVs (returns from an electronics retailer) for about half the retail price...

Goodwill has identified its average shopper as a 44-year-old woman with an income of $53,000 and a concern for the environment... In addition, all of Goodwill's stores have been converted to the same footprint, look and feel. Some have added coffee bars to their book sections...

I'm off with a trunkload of old clothes and things to Goodwill this afternoon. I plan to do some shopping as well.

Embed image found at Reddit, reposted from 2009;  I agree with the comment there: "I never noticed this before." The little smiley-face is a letter "g." Interesting graphics.