I think Fergie likes the control not being a plc gives him. He more or less gets what he wants, when he wants it - whereas before we (apparently) missed out on things while they had to wait for the board to get together and approve stuff.
But, it doesn't change the fact that even with shareholder dividends we wouldn't have pumped the best part of £500m down the drain on debt interest payments, which we have done under the Glazers.
The depressing thing is that we're not actually paying off the debt, just interest