Well, Belle was one that would have been tough to adopt out, and it made me feel good to adopt her. We actually met her twice before adopting her, and the first time we met her, we weren't sure whether she would be the right cat. The shelter moved her to a Petsmart adoption location, and then she was more herself. She's very very sweet, which is what the adoption agent told us, but had been through a lot. They had a special adoption weekend and most of the cats had been adopted...except for her and one other (who got adopted later on the day we adopted Belle). Her owners before us brought her back to the shelter and said she wouldn't warm up. We think that they basically hauled her out of wherever she was hiding. She would flinch back whenever we would walk by. We basically ignored her other than when I would wake up early (you know how much I love cats; I got up earlier than I needed to to be with her) and go see her when she had just woken up. We kept her in the (finished) basement for the first week or so that we had her. Then she would wander up, and we basically ignored her until one day I sat down and she was on my lap.
I hear all of the stories about adult cats who can't get adopted for whatever reason, and I feel so bad about it. One of the more recent ones was a cat whose owner had died and whose son couldn't take the cat. Before the owner died, she wrote a letter to the cat's future owners. It was heartbreaking on so many levels. This happened in MD, and I thought "Boy, if I didn't have Belle, I would be more than happy to take that cat." But I have Belle, and I don't think she'd go for it. And I'll probably have her for a while yet; she very much needs me we've noticed. My mom said that yesterday she was walking around meowing when I wasn't home. And the other day, I came home and she was sitting at the door waiting for me. One of my friends was with me and thought it was adorable.
Much as I want a kitten, I know they are much harder to adopt out, and an adult cat can love you just as much, if not more, than a kitten. Only getting a kitten if I still have Belle. She doesn't like other cats in general, but gets lonely. I think she would end up taking to a kitten pretty quickly