Not sure I understand your post. East as in east coast I assume... Yes, burl and bird's eye are two different things. On very rare occasional, both found together. I last saw such with box-elder. In the juvenile bark stage, you can sometimes see certain figures. Less likely with older bark development.
Bird's eye is found in many species, across several genera, but only really marketed in "hard maple". It is common in silver maple, but most often at densities to low (eyes per board foot) to draw value, and high enough to be considered a defect, dropping grade.
As for figure depth, I can not agree here either, based on experience. While working the northeast with the Forest Service, I had the pleasure to visit many mills and see a good bit. Those experiences along with milling timber on several sites in eastern PA and central NY, have found that figure becomes more common in larger diameter maples, 32"-48" DBH. Often, the figure disappears the closer to pith you get. I have had blister go to curl, then curl disappear to common grain. I've seen trees have figure on one side of the tree, or just in the lower bole. I've had to pith only a few times, most often in Silver maple and then Red maple. I have not had enough detail to say if "super sugars" or black maple variety run any higher percentages of figure compared to common sugar maple. I have only seen quilted sugar maple logs on two occasions. I did not get to see them milled.