I quite easily connect as an ultrapeer. If I don't, I find that if I close LW and restart this can often help invigorate LW into becoming an ultrapeer. That's for LPE at least. Not sure this approach is so great though since UP's are supposed to be users whom are in a way rewarded for their long times online. Sure I spend 1-4 sequential days online. But, LPE seems to be able to be kicked into UP sometimes. If I restarted LW after a long session and it starts to connect as a leaf, if I remove the UP's as it's connecting it can also kick LW into UP mode.

But I will confirm Sleepless's advice on page 1 of this thread still works for LimeWire 5. After an hour as a Leaf drop the first or second connections. Sometimes I may need to drop them all and this then pushes me into Ultrapeer mode (U.P.) And in my own experience, I seem to get much better search results and less spam when running as an ultrapeer. For example, when as a U.P. over the past two years I tend to get 50-60 results (and if it's 90-110 then I know I'm with good connections) for a particular search term I often use. When as a Leaf I might only get 20-30 results for same search.

The way LW is designed, normally connecting as an ultrapeer can depend on average time online (and not being firewalled of course.) I noticed this in the LW mediawiki.