Grab -
Genie, that attitude to owning a cat is the exact reason why I don't like cats (or rather, why I don't like some cat owners).
So you're saying I should just have left Grissy as a stray with no shots, no flea treatment and grooming, no license, no regular feeding, no place to call home?  Give me (and the stray cats) a break!

(BTW, few of the stray cats that are in our neighborhood are "culled" by the city.  They just don't lead really happy lives.)

Ppl buy cats bcos they're perceived as a "low-maintenance" pet - when you go to work or go travelling or whatever, you can just throw them out of the house and leave them to their own devices.

I don't know where you got the idea that I, or most owners of indoor-outdoor cats, treat their cats that way.
I could go into detail about the arrangements I make for my cats when I am out of town, plus the care I give them when I'm home, but that seems like an unnecessarily defensive thing to do.  Suffice it to say that you are assuming a lot.

In the categories listed and described in the Cat Hate website, I'm a lot more "cat lover" than "cat owner."

And, oh, the animals shelters in general are not "snooty" with folks who want to adopt.  It's just a few of the privately owned organizations.  The Humane Society, for instance,  does not tell cat adopters that they must never let their cats outside.
 

What's that old saying?  Oh, yeah -- "The perfect is the enemy of the good."

Genie
§:-)