Marketing power. That's everything, and UF no longer has it. The whole Japanese music business is a fuck up beurocratic. However, Tsunku music and production has always been as awesome.
Yuuko looks better in that pic than in 90% of her photos when she was in Morning Musume...oh wait, just looked at a few old pics, I take that back. Now that I'm 13 years older than I was back then she looks retroactively hotter than before.
She's been hot since she joined and she'll still be hot when she's an old lady.
To be fair, she had some awful hairstyles before (blonde never suited her, and I don't think she looks good with long hair) and now she doesn't, so I get you.
Then again, she's perfect in every way (despite her shitty dogs), so, y'know.
In Shibuya Tsutaya cd ranking MM are at 5th place, I think it's good and they have that promo thing (don't knoe how to say it in Eng), a stand with new album, message, screen with a cm and headphones to listen the album while I was there few girls got interested in them http://imgur.com/ITBo2xI