Hi Zaven,
I dont think that early ULqual based HO will resolve the issue.
It might trigger excessive HO(s) as he already has UL qual so more number of conn will fall in HO condition then & since we are not able to see the qual of the target cell while HO happens, usually we get a chip in dl qual when ho happens till pc brings the situation under control and lot of calls are open to risk of drop due to ho.
I will not recomend ul qual threshold increasing ( if already its not tooooooo low) try keeping it at -90 to -92 (this is good tuning).
Check:
-freq planning
-ul/dl imbalance
-poor coverage locations (huge number of DL level ho %age indicate to the same)
-check if high sd usage is there-check reason (lu,sms,call,detach attach) rach offset value in ur n/w, rach retans times in netw/cell(s), etc