Yes, yes, yes. I've made this comment a few times on here but tools like MIP solvers are vastly unknown since they didn't take on a sexy name when they started out. However, they can outperform most heuristic based algorithms, and even solve some of the largest problems. It's how the NFL makes their schedules oh, and you can imagine how complicated that is.
Fun fact. Most power grids in the developed world are run off of some of the largest MILP and LP problems. We're talking about millions of constraints to commit units and hundreds of thousands to dispatch them. These run around the clock 24/7.
I've only recently learned about SAT type solvers as MILP/LP problems are very fast and globally optimal, unlike things like A* or Genetic Algorithms. I think GA's are cool because you can write one in less than 1/2 page of Python, where MIP solvers are usually large black-box C codesets (Ex: GLPK, CPLEX, GUROBI, XPRESS, Open-Solver).
