Dear Gary,
We do not have immediate plans to add round heliostats to SAM's power tower models. If we hear more requests to add this feature, we will consider doing so for a future version of SAM. If anyone else would like to model round heliostats, please let us know by responding to this thread.
There is not a good way to try to model round heliostats in SAM 2011.11.24 for the reasons you describe. As you mention, SAM 2014.1.14 and earlier have an option to model round heliostats, so you could continue using the older version for now.
Best regards,
Paul.