You don't have to be heavily muscled, or have any appreciable muscle development at all, to have visible abs. I routinely see twinky teens with visible abs. Abs aren't really a bulky muscle. A lot of bodybuilders don't even train abs but rely solely on body fat composition.
As far as body fat percentage? Who cares? What counts is how you look. You can call yourself 9% or 20%. It doesn't matter. You don't have a trace or hint of ab development.
You set yourself up pretty good here. Always preaching that the key is simply progressive resistance and how much progress in muscle gain you made. Criticizing others for their "piss poor" results including me because I haven't made any progress in years, which is true. As if you will keep progressing continuously as long as you strive to get stronger. Something which nobody who has trained consistently for many years or decades, which you haven't done, believes. I always find it strange when the HIT crowd gives their testimonial on how much muscle they've packed on in three months but never talk about how much progress they made in the next two years. I find that in most cases, such as yourself, they just quit or stagnant like everybody else who trains continuously varying only in condition (body fat percentage).
I've been told I'm over 8-9% because I have virtually no vertical separation between my left and right abs. I've also been told that I'm close to 6% because I tend to be veiny. To me it doesn't change what's actually in front of my eyes. And sure I haven't progressed much if at all in decades despite training consistently and seriously for about as long as Jay Cutler has been alive. And I don't expect to see much progress in the future. What am I suppose to do? But I can't wait to see how you compare after your "Three Phase Project" to my long past it's prime 50 year old bod. Especially when you complete the final "polishing" phase.
whom ever told you you are 8-9% shoudl have his tongue cut to 3 equal pieces and fed to the sharks in deep sea ,, you are prime example of what 5-6% look like with little water between skin and muscle,,this is not even 6-7% this is sub 6 with little water that can make one thing you are 6-7% but no you are sub 6% and at your age...very hard to do with out water retention which in your case is very low
also remember friends boyer cow ,,lol boyer COW didnt have abs...he had something resembling abs but geneticaly he didnt have them he was walking 5% and still dindt see no lines of seperation between left and right ,,and he was dry and realy there...which mean abdominal is also genetic,,a better way to tell your bodyfat is to look at the obliqes from both sides,,to look into how tight the area under the lats is the tighter it is the less body fat you have,,the thinner the skin there ...the less bodyfat you have...the more toned you are in that area the less bodyfat you have,,
do not listen to the guru in gym who call everyone 15% when they walk around 8% ..those dont know nothing,,they have very little understanding of modern phsrmacuticals and the way hormones of now days manipulate water,,it was alwyas this way but now days with gh igf and insulina its very hard for them to adapt so they give everyone either 10% or 15% unless they see tunnels between the abs and shrink wrapped skin...it doesnt work this way ,
gh15 approved