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Originally Posted by jeroz
I think the key here is that we don't know Kirito well enough yet so we don't know how to empathise his feelings.
Personally I went in this episode only knowing one thing: she will be his biggest stigma and regret. Therefore my focus is on how the events in this episodes will change him, and we see plenty of it in this episode. He went from a solo player to someone who have someone else weaker to protect, yet the failure only kills his compassion. It's like seeing hope crushed right in front of your eyes just as it's building up.
We are not suppose to be attached to the black cat, we are not suppose to mourn for their death. We are, however, suppose to feel the pain Kirito is experiencing and feel sad from that.
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But that's exactly because Kirito and the Black Cat weren't shown together that much that things go downhill regarding an emotional impact.
Besides the possible attachment of the audience towards these characters, the whole point is, as you said, defining Kirito through such trauma.
And here goes the problem: too little. Kirito lacked screentime and/or monologues with them that really show how he goes through solo to a guild (which felt almost like a mere change of heart out of the blue), without much interactions.
Things are even worse when you don't see Kirito fully characterized during his descent to depression and self loathing, and reckless exp grinding. They basically -tell- with Argo and other tricks, instead of really showing it to some extent.
Heck, the simple fact they didn't even nudge the reason why he "naturally" lied about his level leaves huge blank portion for no reason. Was it because he was scared of the "beater" stuff (despite he had no problem to claim to be one before)? Was it because he wanted to hang around with them? Was it because he didn't want to cast suspicions? etc.
Skipping the circumstances how they met also presents the whole chains of events as just being... "there", instead of a coherent narration (how things went, why Kirito was "conveniently" there at that moment, etc).
It is all about a very poor execution than really the content of the story. And for an anime format, while people can sort of "guess" what's in the head of some characters, there are things you have to show, regardless if it is subtle or not.