You are probably misperceiving how popular the members of the Lincoln cast were at the time because of how popular they got after the show.
Downtown were the exception, they were definitely more popular than the other members at the time. The new cast has Kamaitachi, I would define them as skilled but they are nowhere close to how popular Downtown were at the time, what surprises me is that they didn’t chose Chidori as leaders, probably they are way too busy to start another program.