Hulu gets my vote because it's just so perfectly-done. You go there and you feel like you're watching something that's worth it. I tried watching on YouTube, and even when it's high quality, it's worse-looking than Hulu, and I get that ugly video bar at the bottom. Everybody else gets rid of it, YouTube. Why don't you?
The "popular items" makes perfect sense to me, for the following reason: they maintain consistency as you go between links. If I watch Arrested Development and navigate to a certain page, that page remains as I go to the next video. And Hulu doesn't care about perpetuance: they aren't trying to show fair views. They're here to show content. Because of that, showing the most popular content for an item makes sense: if you assume that people either watch in a linear fashion or they come to the site for one particular thing, then you want to offer a linear view and a "most popular" view, to satisfy both groups.
See, I mentioned Hulu specifically because it's designed for more hardcore watching than Youtube. If I go to Hulu, I'm either looking for something specific, or I'm browsing. On YouTube, browsing means looking through recommended content for other interesting videos. Hulu doesn't need to, though: they specialize in lengthy clips, and because of that fewer people will be randomly browsing. They would be worse off with the more "capable" interface from YouTube.
Futura is rendered in Flash when it's dynamic, as an image when it's not. I think that makes sense. Making the image means no need for Flash workaround. However, when you're adding dynamic content, it's too much of a bother to generate an image for each new item.
Besides: all of this is moot, because in the end what matters is the video-watching experience. Hulu offers two resolutions both above YouTube standards; they hide the menu bar when you watch; their display is less visually jarring. And if your business is distributing professional video content, the display is all that matters. (If you're dealing with amateur work, YouTube is still worse than Vimeo. But then again, Vimeo tries to cater to a slightly more professional audience, I suppose.)
It's sort of the bathroom of video sites. Get in, get out, avoid discussion.
