I stumbled across an interesting article stating that the business schools are starting to accept GRE scores in lieu of or as a replacement for GMAT scores. I always thought that they were two different animals but perhaps not. http://blog.clearadmit.com/2009/07/wharton-darden-to-begin-accepting-gre-scores-in-lieu-of-gmat-scores/
As a foreigner the GMAT is a very "doable" test - both in the math and in the verbal section. And a more intelligent test too. But the GRE is almost impossible in the verbal part - all those questions with very obscure words (without any context) just kill the chances for any ESL student to get a top score. Most foreigners that score high in the GRE just memorize a bunch of words - the indians and koreans are particularly good at that. But that's just shows how silly the GRE is. The quantitative part of both is very similar though.
I teach ESL students. When I prep them for standardized tests (TOEFL, SAT/ACT, GRE), the study of Latin/Greek prefixes/suffixes make all the difference in the world. At least that is what they tell me . . . But I agree with you. It's ridiculous not only for ESL students, but also English natives. The verbal is not as annoying as the math section for me. I'm a humanities person, why must I be tortured with geometry, alegebra, trig . . etc?