isn't that what it should do?
reduced hits is a good thing on a 56K connection, what are you complaining about?
the "hits" are being handled by the ultrapeer that you are connected to, if you are a leaf node that is
you shouldn't be a ultrapeer if you are on a 56K connection
however, you should be sharing about the same amount of files with or without ultrapeers, in the number of uploads per day I mean