isearch-yank-word-or-char

["Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com>]

In Emacs 22, C-w in Isearch is "smarter" than I would like it to be - or
else I haven't yet learned how to use it (suggestions welcome). The doc says
only that "The decision, whether to copy a character or a word, is
heuristic." Does that mean that a user has no control over the behavior?

    (or (eq foo '(bar . toto

Previously, with point at bol here, C-s plus 5 C-w's would select everything
through toto. Now, it takes 14 C-w's to do the same thing! That's a real
nuisance. What am I missing? Is there some way to get it to collect multiple
non-word characters such as spaces, parens, and period with a single
keystroke when it is in "word" mode?

So far, I prefer the pre-Emacs 22 behavior of Isearch, but I'm sure that
others tried this out before the release and found it to be an improvement
(TRT). I'm hoping that someone will point out why the new behavior is better
and how to take advantage of it. Thanks in advance; this is driving me nuts.