Is there a social class shift in "raff" to "raffish"?

I have just watched a historical documentary on the life of Edward VII in which it is explained how the heir to Queen Victoria, both as Prince Of Wales and later as King had been a quintessential exemplar of the raffish mood of the late nineteenth century.

The OED examples of raffish indicate that it is people like James Bond who are raffish.

1906 Bookman Oct. 179/2 One's attention is riveted upon Jessie Incell, a woman reporter, for she inevitably invites comparison with Nancy Olden, the somewhat raffish heroine of In the Bishop's Carriage.

1937 Harper's Mag. June 101/1 The raffish, free-for-all girl finds a devoted husband.

1958 Spectator 27 June 831/2 [He] displayed a certain raffish elegance in his long, dark jacket and dog-tooth trousers.

1989 Observer 3 Sept. (Colour Suppl.) 24/1 Sag Harbor has a more raffish, agreeable, even faintly Bohemian air.

1997 Daily Tel. 27 June 21/1 In a James Bondish sort of way,..[he] combines a raffish charm and an aristocratic sang-froid.

However the etymology of raffish has it that it was formed within English from raff - as in riff-raff.

Etymology: Formed within English, by derivation. Etymons: raff n.3, -ish suffix1

Now the riff-raff quite clearly are not the sort of people who would tend to early-twentieth century raffish behaviour such as that indulged in by Edward VII - visits to the high-class brothels of Paris, the gambling casinos of Monte Carlo and Biarritz, high class courtesans, massive overindulgence in fine food, elegant drinking, trade-mark cigars, and beautiful heiresses.

So how did raff (from riff-raff) get to raffish.

In William Safire's column On Language, in The New York Times (November 19, 2000) in the article Riff and Raffish:

According to Safire raffish

first appeared in a letter from Jane Austen in 1801: "He is as raffish in his appearance as I would wish every disciple of Godwin to be." William Godwin was a brilliant, unkempt Dissenter, husband of the early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, and he struck admirers as delightfully unconventional.

Riff raff is older:

"You would inforce upon us the old riffe-raffe of Sarum," wrote the poet Milton in 1641.

The raff of raffish came from the raff of riff raff. Riff raff are rabble, clearly lower class, and the raffish are the vaguely disreputable of the upper classes.

Saffire:

Riff and raff are half-rhyming quasi-nouns from the Old French rifler, "to rifle, ransack," and raffler, "to ravage, snatch away," applied to things of little value.

I deleted this after I wrote it last week, but Ricky just provided a Missing Link, so I undeleted it. Someone (Mrs Bennet?) probably sniffed that Mr. Godwin looked like riff-raff and Miss Austen then coined raffish.