I wondered that a long time ago and couldn’t find a way. Trigger node does that but you already know it. If you find a way with varidelay please let me know, regards.
Thanks!
Dove into this and found this:
In short: Has been raised as enhancement request but will not be added.
Not sure I fully agree with the arguments (in particular since out of the box trigger node can behave differently), but oh well, workaround is OK so far. 
(OK as in: workload OK for adding switch nodes and 5 resp. 6 different timers)
I suppose I’m being dense, but how do I actually use this? I see the entity being updated in HomeAssistant, but I don’t see how the node-red timer pulls back in on a restart? Or how to actually get this to trigger something. Can someone give me some guidance here? I think it’s exactly what I have been looking for.