Hi Nathan.
> How hard would it be to create a global variable that makes it so that '
> always disables evaluation (even if it can be simplified like in the
> cases cited below?)
Well, this depends on if any other parts of maxima expect the simplification
to be in place or not which is difficult to tell without actually trying.
(And I'm not sure if the testsuite is a sufficient indicator ...)
Also it would be necessary to implement this flag for every noun you
are interessted in. For the case of 'diff I think you need to
change the function simpderiv in simp.lisp...
HTH,
Harald