Serious question, May I address the elephant in the room: grads?
Do you think high frequency of it benefits or is detrimental to Morning Musume? Because even within the J-idol industry, Morning Musume's frequency is one of the highest among others
Granted, Morning Musume used to have older girls joining, so they reach an older age earlier, but let's not go into Aichan, Gaki, Reina, or Sayu; even Kaori's & Yossy's 7 year tenures were the exception!
Of course there's a worse alternative: hiatus like Berryz, because somehow the industry perceives J-idols "must have a short shelf life than a career"
Whilst most Musumes' stints average 4-5 years, consider:
C-ute are still going strong after 8 years with only 2 departures;
Two AKB48 members who have been there since the group was founded: Takamina graduates this december, & 26-year-old Kojima is still with the group
So is current AKB member Kashiwagi Yuki, who auditioned for Morning Musume's 8th generation; had she joined with Mitsui, she'd have graduated too last year by the latest!
Thing is: Morning Musume 15 now consists of 9th-12th gen girls; I'd hope there'll be no grads till at least 2017/8, but do anybody think that'll feasibly happen if Up-front's policy is graduating members just for the sake of 'must-have-'em-grads'?