Tournament timeout question

I'm currently playing two tournament games against a particular opponent. He/she's been on vacation for the majority of the tournament while still making moves- no big deal, it doesn't affect the game.

However, he/she recently timed out in both games while not on vacation.
Tournament rules state games time out in two days "automatically".
I noticed today that the vacation flag is back up, before the two "automatic" days are up.
So is there going to be an "automatic" timeout here or will the games go on?
Can you move after the official timeout but before the game is ended "automatically"?
Why a two day delay on "automatic" timeout?
Why not just stick with the "skull" system in tournaments?

For what it's worth, I could care less about collecting "wins" through timeout. I'm just confused about the system here and would like clarification.

Thanks.

> So is there going to be an "automatic" timeout here or will the games go on?

The games will go on. The vacation flag protects a player from the automatic timeout.

> Can you move after the official timeout but before the game is ended "automatically"?

Yes

> Why a two day delay on "automatic" timeout?

I don't know. Perhaps it's a smaller load on the server to run a sweep once every day rather than monitoring the exact times at which the games are due to end.

> Why not just stick with the "skull" system in tournaments?

One reason is that the tournament would be held up if both players left the site. There has to be some mechanism for ending "stuck" games that doesn't depend on the players clicking something.