I don't think that foreigners are seen as automatically richer etc anymore, but except for teachers, a large proportion of the foreigners here actually are upper middle class so they actually are pretty well off at home and better off here, which certainly doesn't hurt
I think something that has remained for a lot of girls is the idea of marrying a foreigner as a way to escape, not from the poverty but from the culture. A lot of Chinese families still have their weird traditions and customs about getting married, one of the other teachers here married a girl who is very modern and independent and everything as far as I know (I've known them for a few years but she isn't close friends with me or my wife...) and there was quite a lot of crap that the guy went along with from her family about Chinese traditions etc that our Chinese friends were quite surprised that it all still applied to her marrying a laowai, I think you can sometimes get out of it by saying it's too different to the culture...
I think a lot of people still want to get out of China as well. There is a lot of money and industry etc here now but they still don't trust the government.....