Very few people using LW Basic are able to connect to more than 3 UP's.

Running in ultrapeer mode will allow you to connect to more UP's, however I think from LW 4.16 onward stopped the ability for people to cheat to become UP's because there were far too many UP's that were not behaving like proper UP's & were bad for the network. Now ultrapeer mode is only awarded if the networks around your area needs more, and if your LW is behaving well enough to become one, & of course UP needs to be enabled.

If you are a Pro user, try disabling your Advanced options -> Performance, & also under Speed option, disable OOB. That sometimes lifts connection back up to how it should be.

For some people, deleting their previous LW preferences folder has also been a plus for the newer version of LW.