Your so right about the cheap cat food, You can either buy the cheap cat food and spend your money on the vet, or you can buy the good expensive cat food and spend less money and time at the vets.
We took a stray Maine Coon in during the winter, In the last couple of months I've been feeding her better can food, trying different varieties and we can really see a difference in her hair it is really shiny and sliky now, still trying the difference varieties of can food and trying to do my research on them but I think one variety that is going to be a main stable is one of the Avoderm brands.
The cat is a picky eater, One thing that has become noticeable is that she sticks up her noise at the chunky stuff but will gobble down pretty much any cat food that is in the mince meat/ground up variety. So I'm thinking maybe she has problems with her mouth, gums maybe, teeth maybe, or has problems chewing the stuff or swallowing the stuff, but she still eats the dry stuff like a kid to candy which I think would be just as hard to eat as the chunky stuff. We have cut back alot on the dry food, as I'm reading it is not that good for them.
Mine are like that as well. Any "chunky" mushy food, I just smash to mush and they'll eat it. Same w/ cold cuts or chicken. If I break a piece "too big", they won't eat it.
After Kitty, my eldest (18) died, I blamed myself for feeding her the commercial crap. I could have sworn she would have been with me until she was 30.
Now I go to the pet store and buy the more expensive, less ingredient crunchies and mushy food (grain free, which they can't digest).
I learned A LOT about cat food when I posted a thread about Kitty, as I thought she was suffering from CRF.