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Old Presbyterian hymnals at times have included the phrase and others left out it (blue hymnal) and yet others use a footnote (green Hymnal). I believe in the blue Worshipbook, "he descended into hell" was replaced by "he descended to the dead" and so forth ….

I do not think omitting it is helpful. However, replacing it with "he descended to the dead," has been helpful to many. However, for those that desire to say the original, all an elder needs to do is give a brief - very brief - explanation at the beginning of the creed. IMO, I think this may be best, as one learns the original and also learns at least somewhat what it means (the church today is very weak in their knowledge of the creeds ….)….. as others are sure to ask sooner or later and at least they should be "ready to give an answer."

http://thirdmill.org/answers/answer.asp/file/99726.qna/category/th/page/questions/site/iiim

You quoted II, xvi, 10. Look at II, xvi, 11. Here you will discover that according to Calvin he suffered the pains of Hell while yet on the Cross - thus this is not a literal bodily descent. Dabney states (Systematic Theology),

Wherein did Christ's humiliation consist? See Catechism, Qu. 27. That Christ should fulfill the work of a Redeemer in both estates was necessary for did He descend into the purchase and the application of Salvation? Calvin's View. There is seeming Bible authority for the clause of the Creed, (inserted later than the body,) which says that "He went into hell." See Ps. 16:10, as quoted by Peter and Paul. Acts ii and xiii. The Hades into which Christ is there said to have gone, receives four explanations. 1. The grave. But it was not the grave into which His "soul" went. 2. The limbus patrum, the Papal. They quote, also, 1 Pet. 3:19, and explain it of the Old Testament saints, and thus explain Matt. 27:53. But we have shown that there is no limbus patrum . 3. Some earlier Lutherans understood 1 Pet. 3:19, to say that Christ went into the hell of the damned to show them His triumph over death, and seal their fate. Thus it was a part of His exaltation. Both this and the previous notion are contradicted by Luke 23:43. 4. Protestants, by hades of Ps. 16:10, now understand simply the invisible or spirit world, to which Christ's soul went while disembodied. Calvin understands the creed to mean, by Christ's descent into hell, the torments of spiritual death, which He suffered in dying, not after. His idea is, that the creed meant simply to asseverate, by the words, "descended into hell," the fact that Christ actually tasted the pangs of spiritual death, in addition to bodily, and in this sense endured hell torments for sinners, so far as they can be felt without sin. But Calvin expressly says that the whole of that torment was tasted before the Redeemer's soul left the body. For thence it went to rest in the bosom of the Father. He even raises and answers this question. If this is the meaning of the Creed, why is the descent into hell mentioned after the death and burial, if the thing it means really occurred before? The answer is unsatisfactory, but this at least shows that I have not misunderstood Calvin in his peculiar view. And this is all the ground which exists for the charge so often made by persons who professed much more acquaintance with Calvin than they possessed, that he held to Christ's actual descent into the world of damned spirits!

Berkhof summarizing after pages of discussion states:

Scripture certainly does not teach a literal descent of Christ into hell. Moreover, there are serious objections to this view. He cannot have descended into hell according to the body, for this was in the grave. If He really did descend into hell, it can only have been as to His soul, and this would mean that only half of His human shared in this stage of His humiliation (or exaltation). Moreover, as long as Christ had not yet risen from the dead, the time had not come for a triumphal march such as the Lutherans assume. And, finally, at the time of His death Christ commended His spirit to His Father. This seems to indicate that He would be passive rather than active from the time of His death until He rose from the grave. On the whole it seems best to combine two thoughts: (a) that Christ suffered the pangs of hell before His death, in Gethsemane and on the cross; and (b) that He entered the deepest humiliation of the state of death.