It’s very different if you are abroad. And compared to other nations, who can just rock up at their embassy, it is anachronistic.
I've also had to do that as well when we had five passports stolen. Quick trip to Paris and we couldv'e had replacement passports within 5 hours - the only thing that held us up was getting permission from our kids other parents which wasn't the fault of the system. You appear to be making up a problem that isn't there.