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Joe you hit the nail on the head with the difference between short tail and long tail traffic. Here are a couple of ways to figure out the difference between buyers vs browsers that are somewhat advanced:

1) I've found that Google maps traffic drives more buyers than organic search traffic. To figure out what the split is between organic vs maps traffic follow this guide: Google Analytics For Local Search Part 1 of 7: Tracking Traffic From The 10 Pack | seOverflow

2) Want to know exactly which keywords people are typing in when they click your PPC ads? Use this Google Analytics hack to get practically real time data: AdWords Keyword Data Exposed With Google Analytics! | semvironment

3) First Click vs Last Click attribution - Sure, a visitor may start by searching 'honda dealers chicago', but they often end up buying through their last search/click which may be a more targeted term such as '2009 honda civic si in chicago, il'. Most analytics software only captures that last click and hence you're lead to believe that short tail keywords are not buying keywords.  This guide is fairly technical but if you're geeky about your conversion attribution it fits the bill:

SEOmoz | How To Get Past Last-Touch Attribution With Google Analytics