Powers like that don't represent anything in the game world. They give the player limited control over the game narrative, letting them, in some small way, be DM for a moment.
You know, I don't have a problem with things like encounter powers causing minor effects in combat - a shift here, a push there, a distraction, extra damage and a penalty. I have no trouble with that at all. A good combatant should be able to manipulate his targets, within reason, with his own skill, no save necessary largely because that's the point of needing a successful to hit roll.
But describing these effects as giving the players little bits of narrative control is something I don't buy. If you want to give them narrative control, give them a way to actually change the plot, determine where clues can be found, how NPCs are connected. Giving them little benefits in combat, particularly for more damage or little benefits that amount to minor position changes or bonuses, and calling it narrative control just doesn't make much sense to me. For one thing, it's not a heck of a lot of control since your ability to apply it generally relies on a successful attack roll.
I particularly have a hard time respecting the argument of narrative control for the dailies. And this is partly because you have the two types of combat - martial and magical - both shoehorned into the same structure. I've heard people argue that the daily particularly represents narrative control in the way the PC, once a game day, wrests a significant amount of control from the DM and produces a more powerful effect than their encounter powers. Even if that did make sense for the martial powers, it really doesn't for the daily spells. Unless someone really thinks that casting a fireball (in any edition) constitutes asserting narrative control - which I simply can't see. It's just an attack with a broader area of effect - it always has been - with respect to the narrative of the game.