I didn't mean to sound as if I were criticizing you. Your surmise is correct. "ntpd -q" is the same as running ntpd with the "iburst" config option. It does have the effect of dragging the clock into sync when it's way off, which is what ntpdate does/did.
Actually, to drag the clock into sync what it's "way" off, you also need to include the "-g" flag to tell it to ignore it's normal cutoff.
Wow. It's been so long since I needed to look at the ntpd manpage that I had no idea they were going to deprecate ntpdate. It sounds like they have good reasons, but thanks to the original poster to bringing this pending change to my attention.
