Sorry to raise this question again, but I see that Bitcoin Developer lists this as a required field in the second parameter (which is also required). If I do not want to make an OP_RETURN output, should I just pass a {"data": ""} argument? Or will I get away with leaving the object out, as I've seen Bitcoin Developer examples
over here do?
Just leave it out. It is "required" only if you want to create a data output. If you don't want a data output, it isn't required and can be left out entirely.