There's not nearly enough discussion in this thread about Google's Verbatim mode (Tools -> All Results -> Verbatim). In my experience turning this on substantially increases the quality of Google's search results. It stops ignoring half the words in your query and seemingly parses "quoted" phases as you'd expect. The biggest problem is that there is no ability to turn this on all the time for your account and turning…
Now I'm embarrassed about all of this wailing and gnashing of teeth. Excellent pointer, thank you!