I have Thor on the kibble. I'm pretty happy with it. He has a good energy level (maybe too good, ha ha). I especially like it because the kibbles are very small, and Thor doesn't like to chew his food.
He does tend to eat it as a last resort - when he gets hungry, he starts doing tricks to see if he can get any treats, and if he doesn't get any, he stoops to eating kibble. I haven't found a kibble he's really excited about yet, though, and I've tried quite a few. He likes Halo more than most.
I didn't know about the lower meat quality, but I feed him mostly meat-based snacks, so that works for me. He has good poops. Once per day, not too hard, not too soft.