Yeah, I think my dad if he were still alive would argue that Disney was never about the middle class given how much he had to pay in 1986 when he took us after Star Tours opened. That was after staying offsite in a sleezy motel and driving in every morning for 3 days at WDW. We never took our kids to Disney World until we were in a much more secure financial position and that was after finding the best deal as far as dining, hotel, and park tickets. Disney vacations have always been a stretch for most people. Disney has been into analytics for decades. The fastpass system and keeping track of wait times are easy examples of that.
Now Disney has shifted their focus some from kids to Disney Adults because that's an easy demo to hold as a captive audience. They buy merch, they buy popcorn buckets and other dumb collectibles, they go to bars and restaurants on sight, they are active promoters of Disney and Disney FOMO, and they spend more of their discretionary income than most families going once every few years. I'd argue where Disney is actually doing good work as far as Imagineering is in their restaurants and bars. The new Pirates bar at MK looks like a fun place to go and I'm sure it will do really well because it's a scene like the Oga's Cantina was for a time. Disney is spending a lot of resources on cruise ships now, probably more than most of the other arms of business. Maybe that's the new middle class Disney vacation. There's a reason we go to DLR vs. WDW. It saves at least 2-4K to do so, the weather is 1000X better, and I can fly into and out of SNA fairly easily. All that said, oldest said she'd love to have her graduation trip be to WDW again. Ugh.