I think the main problem with your suggestion is that different jurisdictions have different police needs. Should a single officer department in a rural county enact the same programs that NYC has?
Maybe it wouldn't be too popular in the States, where everyone from the Mayor down to the city hall janitor (and including the sheriff) is elected. But it seems to work fairly well in Canada. Jurisdictions too small to warrant their own regional force contract the RCMP or provincial force (e.g. OPP) to serve as the regional force.
The flip side is that it can lead to a certain detachment (no pun intended) from the community because the officers consider it a "tour of duty" to serve at a tiny outpost before graduating to a "real" position.
In my area towns with less than 10k residents have been outsourcing policing to the county sheriff instead of continuing to staff their 1-2 officer police departments.
That single officer should receive the same level of training or better. I don't see lack of backup being a good argument for those officers receiving LESS training, which is your implication.
Now if you give them MORE training, then I'm all for it. I just said a minimum level of training and continued education.
I understand what you're saying in general, but there are a lot of universals that would apply across all kinds of jurisdictions.
With the exception that rural people probably have more and bigger guns than NYC people.
A very small department probably needs higher minimum standards, but there's also a minimum viable size, greater than 1, for a separate department.