Numbers, many others here suspect that they are not used in exact forms due to as you said rounded up numbers. More of an estimate, like if we scan a large crowd, we estimate it to be 1000 people or 2000 people. We don’t say 1245 people.
I don’t see that it’s non literal. The creative mapping there takes the sutta as literal as can be.
Science now uses jargons which are invented as people explore new concepts, new phenomenon, new hypothesis and theories. We cannot expect the Buddha to define all these jargons to the people of ancient India. So the creative mapping is to map the language the Buddha used to the jargons of current science.
The underlying assumption here is that Buddha knows what he is talking about, but the limitations of the scientific knowledge of that time makes it very hard for him to teach science to his audience in a manner that we have now with all our jargons and concepts.
This includes atoms, subatomic particles, molecules, cells, etc, very basic stuffs which if one has not gone through our basic modern education, one might not know, but can roughly pick up via conversation with others.
There’s no such opportunity in ancient India. Perhaps the Buddha was talking about the literal first person experience of the taste of those food and described the food as with those taste. Our current science has no way of personally knowing what it is like for a nucleus to feel what electrons taste like when a free electron is captured in to become more neutral and more like an atom.
Of course, I am forced to go for panpsychism to make the sutta fit. Whereas I don’t really buy into panpsychism.
As to secular Buddhism creative mapping comparison … Since there exist already the rebirth evidences, I do not see the need to creatively map concepts of rebirth. The various other realms are very clearly not just states of minds of humans. So creatively mapping devas as some exotic being, but not homo sapience respect the literalness of the sutta. The exotic being can be totally magical, outside of the realm of current physics or, as i mapped it, either: aliens, beings from higher dimension, beings from parallel universe, advanced intelligence, dark matter beings, or simulated universe beings/programmers.
None of those concepts are really easy for Buddha to tell to his ancient audience.
It’s then an exploration of which possibilities allows for the most natural explainations of all the characteristics of devas. One can also still place a bet on totally magical beings which trivially have the most easy fit of characteristics. I am leaning more towards this as it’s harder and harder to creatively map so many characteristics of devas literally.