What might work for longer-term URF
I call it: the Ultimate Rotation of Fighters.
What if we kept URF around, but applied DotA2's All Hero Challenge to it? Every game you roll a random champion (full pool unlocked: do this for ARAM too please) that you have not yet won with. Your goal is to eventually win a game as every one of them. The variety would prevent a lot of the staleness, and the randomness would override many of the balance issues. It would allow the mode a lot more longevity, and be greatly appreciated by people who actually enjoy the mode legitimately.
Meta spammers can eat it. You are the ones ruining the mode and preventing it from lasting longer by forcing everything to become stale exceedingly fast. The champions you spam aren't even the most actually OP. All it does is force every game to be the same. Same opponents, same counters and playstyle needed to beat them. That's boring. Why would you take something as great as URF and make it boring? For that reason, the Ultimate Rotation of Fighters is designed specifically to counter YOU.
So, what do you think? Would the URF allow URF to remain as a side mode on a more permanent basis? Perhaps the gates could open on weekends to get more people in, and close the rest of the week? Let me know your thoughts.