Don't confuse vocal support for popularity. Just because people who like URF are rather vocal about that support does not mean that URF is the most popular.
URF is polarizing game mode. There are (seemingly) few people who think of URF and go "Eh, it's an alright game mode". Almost everything I have seen on the boards, heard in matches, etc was sharply positive or sharply negative, with very little of the "meh" group.
Don't get me wrong, I love URF as well, and would love to see it come back. I do agree, though, that (before ARURF) it got stale very quickly. You would see the same 10-12 champs every game.
I would love to see two queues for URF the next time it comes out: All Random and Draft. That way we can ban out the worst, while allowing some interesting counter picking.
An alternative to Draft would be Nemisis Draft, or NDURF, if you will. That way, you not only get an interesting mix of champions, but you also don't have to play normals like on the plain old Nemesis Draft (I suck at Normals, so I rarely play SR).