I tried it and it looks like it does nothing but wrap my query in quotes… and then return non-exact results if not found. How is this any different than what people have historically done?

That isn't different, Verbatim search isn't on the advanced search page. You can only get to it from the search results page like in my earlier comment.

It's not on that page, you can only switch to Verbatim on the search results. OP was mistaken.

wow, thanks! how did you find this link? I don't see it anywhere in the main interface.