It makes me happy to see straight statistics here, because you can't dispute facts. Hinata is a secondary character, she doesn't even qualify as a major secondary character. She is no more important than any of the other rookies amongst her. People will still deny to this day that Sakura is Naruto's love interest, even though that is indisputable fact. Let's call these people for what they are: mindless sheep. I wonder what those who re-read the manga do - do they just imagine Hinata instead of Sakura?
People will argue for NH as not a total asspull, but you can't argue against facts. That's called denial. This reminds me of my confusion when Korra and Asami became canon (recently watched Korra for the first time). While Korra and Asami are very different, because it's protaganist x the fourth main, the reason why I linken it to NH is the asspull factor that happens at the end. Korra and Asami literally got together out of nowhere and there's no indictation of any inkling of romantic feelings throughout the whole series.
The manga cover you mentioned, is it the one with Hinata right next to Naruto and Sakura next to Sasuke? If so, then the timeline says too much. Would that mean that Neji was killed off just for the sake of a moment that didn't magically change Naruto's feelings? Anyways. I came across that cover recently, and man, it is not accurate in relation to the story at all, for the reasons you listed. Hinata is not a significant/special person in Naruto's life. Indisputable fact. She, along with the other rookies, will be generally there as 'people' in Naruto's life of course. Naruto's special people, however, is Team 7. How the kitten can you debate that when it's literally been shown as fact from the begining over and over and over again? With regards to Sasuke and Sakura, while they do have that Team 7 comrade bond, Team 7 at that stage in his life was not significant to him. That ended when he left the village. Sakura, someone who is not in his life anymore, should not kittening be there. End of story. It should be people who are significant to his current state.....(Orichimaru, Kabuto, Team Taka etc.). Obviously, Sakura should be next to Naruto, due to her being in Team 7, and most notably, one of his highlighted 'special people' and oh yeah....his love interest.
Hmmm I don't think it's fair to compare Ichihime and Ichiruki though. Orihime (and some people try to compare her to Hinata, but they couldn't be any more different), but Orihime is a semi-significant character in the series. She is not a minor secondary character....at all. You probably know better as I'm not well versed in Bleach, but I don't beleive there was a romance sub-plot in the series, while Naruto had a strong one from day 1. There was just a a Orihime who had feelings for the protaganist. Bleach deserves its whole side-garbage can with its ending.
You know, the "Naruto doesn't understand love" literally erases his entire kittening character. Like it's gone. Literally. Literally from the beggining (CHAPTER 1) you have an attention-starved, love-starved etc. boy who just wants to be acknolwedged, make friends, have a family and of course with all that, be loved alongside other emotional feelings etc. I know people joke and say men are from mars, but damn. They actually believed it. To say Naruto doesn't understand love is to erase his entire character. No question. Naruto is an extremely emotionally-charged person given his tragic upbringing. How can you not understand something that you long for? As if it's not part of our natural emotions. Damn.
Y'all notice how this entire time, Masashi has just been bombarded with criticism and has been giving kitten excuses as to why he didn't make NaruSaku canon and why he made NH and a secondary character the temporary protagonist through a dedicated movie. Literally. Multiple times he has had to give, obviously conflicting, reasons as to why this all happened. "Manga-ended-like-it-should-have": Who? Where? Obviously, this was inevitable, given that the ending and everything that happened contradicted the entire manga. It's like a real-life X-men: Days of Future Past happened.