Having reread AN9.36, I think this is what it is telling us:
- You can get enlightened based on all nine attainments. However, the process will be somewhat different depending on how deep the meditation goes.
- In the first seven attainments there is enough content of awareness, so after you come out you can “contemplate the phenomena there”, included in the aggregates, as “as suffering … as falling apart” etc.
- Then the Buddha concludes these seven attainments with saying, “that is how (iti) there will be penetration to enlightenment as far as the attainments with perception go”. (That is to say, by “contemplating the phenomena there”.)
- However, the process is somewhat different for the attainments with (almost) no perception, because they don’t have enough content to contemplate as suffering. In fact, in the quite similar MN111 Sariputta says there is no escape beyond the cessation of perception, meaning there is no suffering there anymore. So there is also nothing to contemplate as falling apart. Therefore, the way to get enlightened based on these states is not by “contemplating the phenomena there”, but by just attaining them and, when coming back, seeing there was no suffering left (or close to no suffering left).
So, just as Anālayo suggests for MN111, the point being made in AN9.36 is not whether you emerge from all stages or only from the last two; the point is about the content of the attainments.
(And that’s more than enough jhāna sutta stuff for today. 
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