Lal wrote:
-“This does not mean a saddhānusārī will attain the Sotāpanna stage within that lifetime. ”
-“So, basically, a Sōtapanna Anugāmi may be born many times a human until getting to the Sōtapanna stage (may even have many human bhava, each with many human jāti). ”
That makes me wonder about the time when the Buddha was here. What if those who were able to attain Sotapanna stage and other stages of magga phala so quickly(more quickly than others) were not mere puthujjana, but were already Sotapanna Anugami, hence why they needed just a bit more push. And those who took longer were puthujjana, not even Sotapanna Anugami yet.