Kidding aside, thank you for the thoughtful post.
I've lived in loosely-gated communities, and the sense of security is just far less. Here I don't mind walking around at 2am -- there's simply zero crime inside the area. I don't even lock my doors sometimes. (There's cameras covering every part of the community.)
We have about 400 houses, each paying about $30 a month for security and commons/park maintenance. A guard makes $400 a month.
It's a nice place to visit. Geography is great. But the constant brokenness of everything just wears you down. The pervasive violence also just adds a pall over everything. I think a lot of people just sort of give up on the place -- things don't really change. It's not just corrupt (who cares if someone takes money), it's just sheer incompetence all around. I mean this at every single level. From government, to doctors, to people building basic structures with no planning/engineering.
I truly believe countries like these only have hope if a serious country comes in an runs the place.
It's a not-excellently-paid job that is extremely stressful. It's extremely traumatic to hear someone dying, begging you for their life, and not being able to help (if, say, the location info fails and they don't know where they are). Add in low funding, and there can be long waits.
Location info sometimes fails, so it's ALWAYS a good idea to confirm location. In Canada an operator failed to do so, dispatched medical aid to the wrong location, and a kid died.
As to poor response in your experiments, I don't think that accurately represents the situation for everyone. It heavily depends on where you are and how busy they are. Certainly many people get very fast response times. 911 saves a huge amount of lives every year.
I've been in other countries that really don't have 9-1-1. First thing you notice is that every house is a mini-fortress. In Guatemala, I have a 24/7 rotation of guards, at least 4 all time. Because if an attack isn't prevented, there's going to be no helpful response. 911 is an amazing service and the lack of it is acutely noticed.