Contrary to what the Red Bean book says, when doing an svn switch --relocate, the repository actually is contacted. I don't believe it does much more than confirm that the new location is valid, but the documentation is probably incorrect and is certainly misleading.
Why am I just bitching here instead of submitting this as a bug report? Well, the issue in the docs has been around since 1.0, and I'm lazy. Plus I hate freedom, I know and even sometimes speak French.