I suspect the question whether an unenlightened being gets reborn (or still exists after death) just didn’t get asked as much. Most people simply assumed they did continue in a next life. But what happens after an enlightened being dies, about that they weren’t so sure. So then the questions arose, like those about the Tathāgata after death.
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But issue is sharper than that, no need to wait for the death:
He understands: ‘This field of perception is void of the taint of sensual desire; this field of perception is void of the taint of being; this field of perception is void of the taint of ignorance. There is present only this non-voidness, namely, that connected with the six bases that are dependent on this body and conditioned by life.’ Thus he regards it as void of what is not there, but as to what remains there he understands that which is present thus: ‘This is present.’ Thus, Ānanda, this is his genuine, undistorted, pure descent into voidness, supreme and unsurpassed.
MN 121
That the individual (puggala) is still alive, but beyond being is the issue which has to be understood, at least for someone aspiring to bring his being to the end by entering the voidness.
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