@ Hassan
Well, since you mentioned it, that's one of the questions I wanted to ask you about and I find troubling...
You say the audience (Sahana) knew what the Quran was talking about... that might be true when it concerned their life/events in medina, but when it comes to other verses, like the verse of the Heights for example, there's not a single Hadith about it...
Now, if I can imagine myself being one of the prophets companions and I hear of the the men of the Heights, I would immediately ask the prophet about it... in fact, such a verse, all the Sahaba should ask about it and we should even have a Mutawatir hadith about it, yet NOTHING... Ibn Kathir's imagination goes wild on this... can you believe this? What are we to conclude?
I have to confess it was not a topic that troubled me when I was a Muslim. I regarded it as one of the mystical/metaphorical verses that one could speculate about but ultimately God knew best! (I had a lot more troublesome verses that took my attention.)
Now I see it as part and parcel of any prophet/seer/sage's repertoire - namely a bit of mystery and intrigue. Something to get one to wonder at the meaning.
I have no doubt that references to stories like Sulayman were expected to be familiar to Muhammad's audience - at the very least to his Jewish audience who he tried hard to win over.
But there is an element of mystery - just as any good entertainer has - to keep his audience guessing. (As a teacher I know that to get a class of children's attention, using words like 'secret' and 'magic' will do the trick - but they must be used sparingly.)
That is of course my humble opinion and Allah knows best