Can we apply the bundle of reeds simile to all limbs of Dependent Origination? "Suppose there were two bundles of reeds leaning up against each other. In the same way, name and form are conditions for consciousness. Consciousness is a condition for name and form. "

https://suttacentral.net/sn12.67/en/sujato

Can we apply the bundle of reeds simile to all limbs of Dependent Origination?
Yes, this is correct. This is why it's called "pratitya-samutpada" or "dependent-co-arising" ("stepwise-mutual-production")

The sequence represents progressive development of dualistic thinking (dualistic hardening) down the chain that creates the concept of one's own death. You see, dualistic thinking is thinking based on discrimination between left and right, top and down etc. - it's a type of thinking that involves defining a reference point (the zero point, e.g. between up and down) and some sort of quality or criteria for separation (up/down, inside/outside, beautiful/ugly etc.).

In pratitya-samutpada each pair of adjacent steps represents one act of dualistic separation or co-definition. Each pair splits the world in two, along one dimension and creates foundation for the next split. We are talking about developmental psychology of mind here.

Samskara is a cohesive collection of memories or imprints that are accumulated one-by-one in such a way as to be logically consistent, in such way as to create some sort of consistent interpretation or experience of what's going on.

This collection of observations supports emergence of Experience (Vijnana) which is really nothing but reification of Recognition (or Interpretation) of new observations in terms of internalized old observations. This act of recognition or interpretation makes it possible for the new observation to be added to the pile, consistently with what's there already. Therefore Samskara enables Vijanana and Vijnana enables Samskara.

Recognition involves recognizing patterns like objects and situations, or generalizing significant features into identities. Therefore by its very nature Recognition is reification of entities. We define objects and give them names. This is called Namarupa. Recognizing objects (and places, situations) supports further development of Vijnana. So at this stage too, Vijnana supports Namarupa and Namarupa supports Vijnana.

The notion of objects arises co-dependently with the notion of their background or space in which they exist. Because there are six types of objects, there are correspondingly six types of space. This is Salayatana. So Namarupa and Six Spaces support each other, fall out from each other.  The world, once again, is split in two: object and its background.

Karmapa's Dream Flag is an illustration of this principle of the object and background mutually-co-defining each other. Are these blue waves on the yellow background or yellow waves on the blue background? That depends on the observer's interpretation. The object and its background are mutually co-dependent. As soon as we designate the object - the background co-emerges and vice versa.



By this point the dualistic process progressed far enough to have a pretty rich differentiation of the external ("world" with "objects"), but there is pretty much nothing differentiated on the inside yet. There is also no experience of Time yet. But now that there are six spaces with corresponding sets of objects, there can be experience of a known object re-appearing after a period of being absent. This experience is called Contact. It is made possible by everything that happened until this point, but particularly by the notion of space as the background on which the object appears. The world is split along the dimension of time, into the time without the object and time with the object. This notion of Contact (having the object) makes the absence of object event more noticeable, thereby re-supporting the Six Spaces.

Now that we have identified the time when object is with us as significant, we notice the Feeling we have when the object is present. We attribute this feeling to the Contact with the object. This feeling in its turn re-enforces experience of Contact as something real and significant.

This Feeling at the time of Contact makes for a striking contrast with the time of No Contact. Obsessively remembering the Feeling of Contact during the time when the object is not with us, because the impression it left on us was so strong and fit so well with the pile of Samskara, is called Tanha or craving. This craving re-enforces the feeling we have when the object comes back.

Obsessive craving for Feeling/Contact/Object leads to obsessive thinking and fantasizing about it, Upadana. We tell ourselves a never-ending narrative, we replay situation over and over again, we make a little movie in our head about the Contact. We develop a plan of action to get what we want. This narrative/movie/plan is nothing but re-constructing a possible sequence of events from our pile of Samskara, events that could lead to the desirable Contact again. This process of obsessing over the object of our desire serves to re-enforce Craving.

Fantasizing about the contact leads to an idea of ourselves existing in different points in time. First we exist here-now, without the object. Then we will exist there-then, hopefully with the object. This splits the world into the background of Time and the Self-Identity (Bhava) traveling from past to future over time. It also re-enforces the entire experience of the World with Objects that we have thus constructed. The concept of "I" is the mirror reflection of the entire world that we have created, and thinking about one side reinforces the other.

This notion of I as something that solid, something that exists, comes in contact with objects, experiences feelings, sets the goals and achieves them -- something that lives -- leads to conclusion that I am the sentient being. I am this organism that exists just like another object of the world. This is called Jati or birth. This notion of "I am this person" reinforces the notion of "I" created on the previous step.

Finally, as soon as we have defined a part of the world as something separate and concrete, an object living in this specific form - the change of form is seen by us as destruction. And since we identify with this object as "I", its destruction is seen as our Death, and anything that disturbs our idea of life-as-it-should-be is seen as this sentient being's suffering. 

This entire structure is possible because of the fundamental Ignorance of how all this works. This ignorance permeates and supports the 11 nidanas, while the personal drama that comes out of it reinforces Ignorance, supporting the process of accumulation of observations, interpretation, and reification that leads to arising of the world and I, living and dying.

For more information, see Nanavira Thera's Notes on Dhamma and Buddhadasa's book "Practical Dependent Origination" a short summary of which can be found here: http://www.dhammatalks.net/Books6/Bhikkhu_Buddhadasa_Paticcasamuppada.htm