Brett Tabke posted a thread at WebmasterWorld that Google is no longer showing him the quick method of turning off Google Instant.
He said:
It is bad enough that Google forced us to use "instant" in the first place, and that it was incompatible with several leading browers, now they have buried it under 'preferences'. You are now forced to go through preferences every time you want to turn of instant (which is ever time for me).
Personally, I see the instant off link, as do some others. Currently you will see the ability to turn off Google Instant on a desktop search on the search results page as in the image below. Or on a mobile search on the Google home page.
Are you missing this feature or is this just a limited test Brett Tabke is part of?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Update: Turns out this was a bug with Brett's browser. Good thing I used question marks in my titles.