re: Microsoft Project

The biggest argument in favor of Project IMO is that it's so ubiquitous everyone knows how to use it, it isn't all that hard to pick up the basics, and it's relatively easy to get questions answered (big user community, training is everywhere, etc.).

And yes, it costs extra. A lot of enterprises already have an MSDN license that might cover a small PM team though.

Some other system may be fine if the PM team is small and expected to have low turnover. For better or worse though it's hard to go wrong with Project, this should be the default choice unless there's a compelling reason to use something else.

Unfortunately I can't help you much with Kickstart/Mindview, I have no experience with them. If nobody else does either that may answer your question. Microsoft has pretty much assimilated the PM world at this point.