Don't know enough about her to make a strong judgement but it's kinda like No Sleeves getting Reina as a new member. Can't predict things like that.
Interesting girl. Initially I thought that Kikuchi was just demoted but her thread here said that she was actually fired but then picked as a Kenkyuusei because of fan power (wait a minute, fans that actually don't mind the whole boyfriend thing?). I never knew she was that popular, and going by how fans discovered Mariko maybe Akimoto went "Bingo! Another super member. Get her back here".