I agree that reading suttas is important and I have read my fair share over the years. One can gain a good intellectual understanding of the dhamma by doing so, which is valuable. Sooner or later though one has to apply "right concentration". This is the development of Jhana, without which the actual insight will not arise.
I agree. But it is later, not sooner. Right concentration (witch means jhana) is the
8th step of the noble 8thfold path. It is closely connected with non-returning. What a person first has to do is the first step of the path: right view (stream entry). And speaking of the 8th step of the path, B.Bhodi has admitted that he never achieved jhana.
The insight that will arise because of developing jhana are the 3 arahant knowledges. You will have to wait a couple of decades or a couple of lifetimes for that to happen. What you should focus now is developing the insight required to arrive at right view (first step of the path), witch is done through contemplating suttas not through jhanas. Again, every person that ever achieved stream entry in the suttas did so after hearing a discourse. When making claims such as jhana been required to achieve stream entry, please provide sutta reference.
In the suttas, people who have heard powerful discourses about dependent origination normally achieved stream entry. But there were ascetics who have developed jhanas prior to hearing the discourse and they achieved arahanthip when hearing them. This is also why Buddha achieved arahanthip instantaniously when figuring out the doctrine of dependent origination. He did not first achieve stream entry, then once-returner, etc. He had already developed jhanas prior to that.
And that is also why he or his teachers were not enlightened despite achieving the 8 jhanas prior to that.
You can be a hardcore ascetic all your life just like Buddha or his teachers or his ascetic friends. Yet you will not attain even stream entry by doing that, just like they didn't achieve it either without contemplating the doctrine of dependent origination until you arrive at right view. Only after doing this first step should you continue to develop step 2, step 3, step 8, etc. witch are much more difficult to develop.
What was the difference between before-enlightenment Buddha and after-enlightenment Buddha ? It certainly wasn't jhana, cause he had developed all 8 of the already. Buddha himself gives us the answer "before my enlightenment, when I was still an unenlightened bhodashitta, it did not occur to me: when what exist, is aging and death discerned .... etc. (continues with dependent origination). Then we have : "on the night of my enlightenment, it occured to me: when what exist, is aging and death discerned .... etc. (continues with dependent origination)
I'm not sure where you get the idea that BB does not meditate from:
He said it himself. As a matter of fact, if you write "Bhikkhu Bhodi" on google, one of the most searched things that appear is "B.Bhodi does not meditate". What this refers to is that he does not "meditate" in the way most people understand meditation (mahashi focusing on the breath - similar to sutta apanasanti but not exactly the same thing). He said that despite starting with mahashi technique, he does not practice it anymore but that he does not advise against it. B. Sujato also has the same opinion about that type of meditation. And as we can see from your quote, what B.Bhodi means by meditation (things like recollection of death, loving kindness, contemplating the repugnant nature of the body etc.) is not what most people understand by meditation. And that is what B.Bhodi referred to when he said he does not "meditate" anymore. In the west, meditation is synonymous with the popular mahashi technique.