Hi, my first post here...
We had my son go through a formal diagnostic for autism spectrum because his school was having so many problems with him - one of our local universities did it. It was really cost effective and he loved the experience.
We are now homeschooling him because, despite the aspergers diagnosis, he was still miserable in the school and actually regressed - almost like the teachers took this "well, he is aspergers so - just let him slide by" approach. They were really nice, just ineffective with him academically. So, at first I thought - wow, this diagnosis hurt us.
However, now that he is almost 11, it has become very apparent to him that others regard him differently - the diagnosis has become part of his ability to cope and pinpoint what he needs to learn to be better in social situations. It also helped us discover valuable things like social stories that we may not have found if we didn't know exactly what was going on with our son.
So, I went from thinking we shouldn't have bothered to really appreciating having the language and context for my son to move forward in his development.