how come if you delegate to them, you get a higher UA?

I don't believe it works that way @wizardave. The logic of steem-ua is to upvote the posts of steemians that delegate to them. Upvote worth is supposed to be based on ranking (which is where witnesses come in because the trust factor stems from witnesses.)

The steem community (non-utopian users) delegated to show support and/or to get a piece of the upvote pie. Utopian users do not have to delegate but they qualify if their contribution is approved by utiopian, so they too get an upvote. A very nice one it seems!