Its not all about the encryption...
Ev SSL is really how SSL validation should have been done originally, once they iron out some of the americanisms and make the standard a little more internationalised.
A business that requires an EV SSL certificate is validated in a lot of detail, whilst this may be a bit more draconian than the stupid email me back and I'll give you a cert approach some CA's adopt EV *actually* validates the identity of the business before issuing, checks for business registration and id of the owner are checked by a real person, and cross checked again by a real person.
Whilst verisign charge an arm and a leg, there are plenty of other root CA's that can provide EV SSL certs, and don't rip you off, just look up digicert, comodo and some other the others.
One of the main things is that the EV SSL validation processes will be consistent accross CA's. this means that I can feel a little more confident that the person I'm doing business with has been checked as reputable. This doesn't stop phishing, and probably won't but it will stop dodgy businesses from obtaining the certs.
A consistent approach to validation will also mean that the price will probably come down as the CA's can't compete on the level of validation performed for their certificates. Part of the problem is that EV SSL has been marketed as solving a problem that it doesnt really. Another visual aid for an end user is great, but how many people actually understand what the padlock means, or have ever read a CPS or looked at who issued a cert, so can understand what level of validation has been performed for the business they are about to transact with.
@ Stephen, as for the "identity checks they are supposed to do in the first place" I agree with the spirit of what you are saying, but the problem is that with bog standard SSL the id checks they do are only geared towards what they say they will do in the CPS which could be nada. With EV standardising this hopefully we will be able to get rid of crappy low validation certificates, and remove some of the low end "I'll give ssl to anyone" CA's out there.
I work with several major CA's to assess how they perform validation, its not money for old rope, these guys really do put a lot of effort in, and are audited every year to make sure they are doing it all properly and that their underlying infrastructure is secure.
Hopefully EV will be a step in the right direction, but its certainly not a one stop fix all.