I dunno, I haven't used it in the past, because...

1) "It is recommended to always keep the 'magic' option at the default setting, which is 'magic'. This avoids portability problems."

2) Nor do I want to type two extra characters in every damn regex!

So, it only occurs to me right now, the right thing to do for me is this: the first instant I'm confused about whether \( means grouping or literal paren, I should immediately start my pattern with \v or \V. No unportability of plugins, no marginal cost on regexes that don't care, marginal benefit when it does matter.