Cats are cats, and we should respect them on their own terms. Several cast members told me they studied cats while learning their roles. It worked, and the show also had spectacular effects, notably the cats' eyes lighting up right at the beginning. Webber says this was a rare case of his fitting the music to the words, not devising the story, then the music, then the words. Also, let's be frank.
Women love cats.
Though I am pro-cat, I don't share the female delusion that cats are warm and loving, like newborn babies. One way is to graft on a gratuitous plot. Eliot left the fragments about Grizabella out of the book because they were too sad for children. But that was then, and now we get this, and it's hugely popular. Walt Whitman said great literature requires a great audience, and maybe we don't have one.