What is genodiversity good for?
Genetic diversity is indeed very important for many reasons, most notably resistance to diseases. 

The Gros Michel banana used to be the most cultivated banana, until it was almost completely wiped out by a fungal disease due to lack of resistance in the genetically homogenous cultivars grown in plantations. As a result, it had to be replaced by the Cavendish banana across most of its former range by banana growers. 

Furthermore, the answer is a definite "yes" to people with genetically transmitted diseases helping the gene pool. 

For example, the case of sickle cell anemia clearly shows why even people with genetic diseases can help the gene pool by providing useful alleles. Heterozygotes for the sickle cell allele are resistant to malaria. This has led to the allele having a high propensity in subsaharan Africa, where malaria is endemic.


  The first example of genetically controlled innate resistance to human malaria was the demonstration in 1954 that sickle-cell heterozygotes have less severe Plasmodium falciparum infections than do children with normal adult hemoglobin. This observation has been repeatedly confirmed, most recently by independent studies of genome-wide associations in severe falciparum malaria, which have identified the HBB locus as the major signal of association. 


Additional examples are the cystic fibrosis gene, which confers resistance to cholera, and thalassemia, which confers resistance to heart attacks.