The sys_var class has the deprecation_substitute member to mark the
deprecated variables. As it's set, the server produces warnings when
these variables are used. However, the plugin has no means to utilize
that functionality.

So, the PLUGIN_VAR_DEPRECATED flag is introduced to set the
deprecation_substitute with the empty string. A non-empty string can
make the warning more informative, but there's no nice way seen to
specify it, and not that needed at the moment.