Well, I don't think it was going to be his visual update; I think they always did have it in mind as an ultimate skin. It's only very recently that the standard for VU has risen so high that SGU feels unexceptional. Back when they made it, SGU was well beyond reasonable expectations for a visual update.
I agree it has a problem with making doing a visual update of Udyr really hard to do. If it's at least as good as SGU, which I believe it would be (for starters, they'd probably reuse a lot of the technology they used on SGU to begin with), that would irritate the folks who bought the skin. After all, ultimate skins are price protected, and we're seeing something similar for free. If it's worse than SGU, people will feel that Riot didn't try as hard as they could have just to protect the purchase of folks who bought SGU.
Making the VU different from SGU — neither better nor worse, just different, like Nasus and Infernal Nasus — would be tricky, because SGU is really more like "Udyr Udyr". It's him done better, not differently. I know Riot has said they intended it far more controlled and at peace with himself than the base skin, but considering the low quality of the base, that really doesn't come through. I can't even tell what he's doing with most of his base animations. I don't see how they can rework Udyr without running right into something that can be directly compared with SGU.
I like SGU too. I've bought it, and I consider the animations some of the best work the skin team has done. By that metric, even by modern standards the skin excels. But I think having made it without a clear identity of its own will lead to problems down the line for Riot. It makes updating Udyr (who is in need of a VU, I agree) a very awkward proposition, and therefore probably not something that's going to happen anytime soon. Hopefully Riot will learn from their mistake and the next ultimate skin have a clearly distinct identity like PFE does.
