How is traffic flow through transparent virtual servers different from typical virtual servers?

Transparent virtual servers do not impose any single-routing-device requirement - they can operate in various network topologies without that constraint.

In F5 BIG-IP, a transparent virtual server forwards traffic to pool members without performing source or destination NAT, meaning the original IP addresses are preserved end-to-end. Unlike standard virtual servers that translate the destination IP to a pool member address, transparent virtual servers allow the packet to pass through with original addressing intact. This makes them useful in topologies where IP translation would disrupt routing or application behavior.

Transparent virtual servers do perform load balancing across pool members; the absence of IP translation does not disable or bypass the load balancing function.

Bridging with both IP and MAC addresses intact describes a Layer 2 forwarding mode, which is a distinct concept from transparent virtual servers - the defining characteristic of transparent virtual servers is specifically the absence of Layer 3 IP address translation, not MAC-level bridging.