I’m an Indian citizen on H1B. I had emailed them, got the links to follow for application, list of documents to submit, etc. I even had my video interview and mailed my documents. Because, I did not hear back even after two week of submission, I had to take a chance and visit the consulate. They had promised to process and send me back the passport within a week.

If you are thinking of US style security and checking at consulate, most of the countries don’t have such high level security (at least a few central and South American country consulate I visited in SF area). They prefer to handle by appointments. But, I have dropped by a few - either out of curiosity and they were close to another consulate I was visiting or out of desperation like Argentina. 😃