MOST SMARTTHINGS CUSTOMERS NEED CLOUD OPTIONS
First, as to why Samsung may put cloud options front and center…
It may help to remember that less than 15% of SmartThings customers have a hub at all, so the vast majority can’t use edge drivers. (They have a Galaxy phone, a Samsung smart television, or a Samsung smart appliance. Those all use SmartThings.)
You can still have a nice home automation setup without a hub: ring or Arlo cameras; a hue hub with bulbs, switches, buttons, and sensors; Meross or kasa wifi switches and smart plugs; Shelly or Sonoff inline relays. And many of those customers do use virtual switches.
So probably not a surprising decision.
OPTIONS FOR LOCAL VIRTUAL DEVICES FOR THOSE WHO DO HAVE A HUB
If you do have a SmartThings/Aeotec hub You can create your own local virtual devices using the CLI, it’s just more work than using VEdge Creator, which is why it’s so popular.
BUT THERE’S A CURRENT PLATFORM PROBLEM
All of that said, there is a known platform bug right now (September 2023) affecting ALL methods of creating child devices for all protocols, including virtual: that may be what you’ve run into. It’s very frustrating. 
I suggest you first describe the issue you’ve run into with VEdge creator in the thread for that edge driver, and people there can let you know if it’s related to the platform bug in which case you may just need to be patient until smartthings gets things sorted. 
[ST Edge] vEdge Creator: a virtual device generator for end users
If you do want to look at other community-created edge drivers for virtual devices, you can find them in the community- created wiki on the quick browse lists, but they’re all running into the same problems right now if they use child devices.
https://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=Quick_Browse_Lists_for_Edge_Drivers
And if you want to follow discussion about the bug: