Is Holy Water really Holy under the new rite of blessings?

Fr. John Zuhlsdorf raises this question indirectly when he points out that the new book of blessings eliminates the distiction between invocative and constitutive blessings:

The old rite for blessing Holy Water speaks about the sacerdos, which means bishop or priest. It does not mean deacon. This is probably because the blessings include the exorcism of salt and of water, before they are blessed. When you tangle with the Enemy, you want the ontological character of sacramental priesthood. If a rare deacon would baptize in the older rite, he would use water that had been blessed already.

I surmise that deacons cannot bless Holy Water with the older form, even though the newer books may let them do so (De benedictionibus 1087). The reason why deacons can “bless” the water in the new book is because, so far as I can tell from a close reading of the Latin text, at no point does the celebrant actually bless the water. He talks about the blessings God could give people who use it, but the rite does not actually specify that the water be blessed. If someone can show me that I am wrong, can point to the word or gesture I am missing, I will happily be corrected.

... The new, dreadful, De benedictionibus – let it be swept away and forgotten – changes the theology of blessings in a way hitherto unimagined. In a nutshell, the new, post-Conciliar book eliminates – horribile scriptu – the distinction between invocative and constitutive blessings. The “blessings” in the new book don’t really bless things in the same way that the older ritual intended to bless things. They talk in a vague way about God’s favor on those who might walk nearby or use the thing.

I have not paid close attention to the priest's words when they have blessed rosaries and other religious articles for me, but I would now want to raise similar questions about such blessings. I know that our acquaintances over at Call to Action would consider this all so much "hocus pocus" and "mumbo jumbo" (one even suggested that laity should bless their own water and religious articles), but I still adhere to the old school view that a priestly blessing can and should confer something actual. The demons surely recognize this during exorcisms when they recoil from Holy Water and the invocation of the Holy Name of Jesus. Your thoughts?