That's kind of the thing. I mean, I can't comment on Ryuji (yet), but with Yosuke I got this feeling that the game was really trying hard to make you like him - and in the end, that's what prevented me from really making a connection with him. He doesn't get any serious flaws that could make him controversial and he never really gets any conflict with you, while his flaws from a meta-perspective (like the sexism and homophobia mentioned before) is either played for laughs or as a point of relating to him ("haha, those girls, am I right, guys?"). It's like Atlus going "here's a best friend for you please love him we'll do anything for you to love him" rather than crafting someone that feels like an actual person who you can befriend by overcoming differences and gaining mutual respect. Yosuke just loves you from the getgo. Arguably, this could have worked much better for him without a silent protagonist that's just an audience avatar. But this is not the case here.

Despite my gripes with him, I'm actually a bit upset that they cut out that romance option with him since that would arguably have made him more interesting in that he'd be the only gay romance option in the entire series, not counting 2, which may have been pretty groundbreaking in the 90s but still stands out from the romance options of the later games as pretty irrelevant.