The former "virtual opponent" appears to have been removed, and section 16 defines a simpler means to deal with unplayed games:
Now that all seems straightforward and simple, and I think I know what it means.16. Unplayed Rounds Management in Swiss Tournaments
In Individual or Team Swiss tournaments, the tie-breaks Buchholz (see Article 8.1), Sonneborn-Berger (see Articles 9.1 and 13.2) and their variants (Fore Buchholz, see Article 8.3; and "Cut" Modifiers, see Articles 14.1 to 14.4), which are directly or indirectly based on opponents' results, are affected by the presence of unplayed rounds in the record of participants.
16.1 The following definitions are used in this section:
16.1.1 requested bye: a half-point-bye or a zero-point-bye (note: any round after a participant withdraws is a zero-point-bye)
16.1.2 available-to-play round: any round in which a participant played their game, or ended up without a game due to a pairing-allocated bye, the opponent did not arrive to play, or unforeseen circumstances that resulted in the award of a full-point-bye
16.2 Unplayed rounds can be divided into the following categories:
16.2.1 Pairing-allocated byes or full-point byes
16.2.2 Forfeit wins
16.2.3 Requested byes that are followed by at least one available-to-play round
16.2.4 Forfeit losses
16.2.5 Requested byes that are not followed by any available-to-play rounds
16.3 When a participant has unplayed rounds, for the sole purpose of calculating the tie-break of their opponents, the participant's score is adjusted in the following way:
16.3.1 Unplayed rounds of categories 16.2.1, 16.2.2, 16.2.3 and 16.2.4 are evaluated with the result (win, draw, loss) corresponding to the awarded number of points or, for teams, match points and game points.
16.3.2 Unplayed rounds of category 16.2.5 are evaluated as draws.
16.4 To calculate the participant's own tie-break, any of their unplayed rounds are evaluated as if there was a game played against a dummy that has the same number of points as the participant themself, and ended with the result (win, draw, loss) corresponding to the awarded number of points.
However, I am not so foolish as to believe that when I think I know what any FIDE document means, I actually do understand it at all.
Can someone who really, really knows what FIDE intends, please explain it in simple terms?
Also, can someone explain how to configure Swiss Manager so that Bucholz is in accord with FIDE's new regulations, please?