So this is a bit of a tough one. Technically you need FlexClone to do file level restores with SMVI (VSC). You said SMVI 2.1 but I assume you mean VSC 2.1? Regardless I would recommend upgrading to VSC 2.1.2 which is the most current and has some important bug fixes.
You should have been told that SFR required FlexClone but what is done is done. What we are working on is a version of VSC that allows for the SFR process which does not require FlexClone. More specifically a version of FlexClone just for VSC (which is free). The problem is I don't know when that might be.
If you do a VMDK restore, it will in fact restore over the existing VMDK which you don't want, so don't do that.
You can try to mount the VMDK from the snapshot as an additional disk if you set that disk to be non persistent mode. This used to work in ESX 3.5 days but I am not sure if it still works in 4/5. I could not make it work in a 5.0 environment a few months ago.
I am sure the account team could get you a temp license for FlexClone. What version of ONTAP are you on?
Keith