Sadly I can't give you a quick and easy comp between those years, as the helpful data at sharpfootballstats is just for the last few years, no doubt as informatics has improved. It would be great to compare and contrast.
That said, I don't see 2009-11 Saints football as the indisputable template for offensive football. For one thing, only one of those was a Super Bowl year, and for another we changed which positions/players were the focus of passing targets regularly in that period alone.
And in fact every year, SP tailors the scheme to the personnel, rather than the other way around. Which again says to me that we don't need to find a player just to fill perceived forum needs, because we use what we have brilliantly.
I'm not sure where your point about things being different in playoffs comes from. The team's playing 12 and 22 personnel all season carried on doing the same come playoff time, there's no discernible distance.
As for the 'what if someone in the front line gets injured', that's a wash as it applies to every position and every team in the league. You can't mitigate losing every potential starter on a roster, and that's just reality.