Paperwork in those countries can take years but it only matters if you need entry visas/visas to travel elsewhere, so if you hold a first-world passport, you don't care, you file your paperwork and enjoy the rights of the permit you are applying for, from get go, and it's their problem how long it takes to get done. If you don't have a first world passport then yes, it's a pickle, because foreign embassies or immigration officials won't respect the 'application receipts' instead of a real document.
On the flip side, these countries are democratic and provide a path to citizenship and have a real society to integrate to, not literally 90% expat population who come and go and have both no potential (because no naturalisation) and no incentive, to integrate.
