Hi Jeff,
what is it exactly that you are trying to show? My first guess is you are looking at the wrong output or using the wrong command.
If I take the demo MCC in Munich, which has just 5m distance between the two "sites", I see very similar numbers with that command:
optimus::> statistics system show -interval 5 -iterations 25 -max 25
optimus : 12/4/2015 11:08:01
CPU *Total Total Latency
System (%) Ops (Bps) (ms)
------- --- ------ ----- -------
cluster 5 3 7017 250000
optimus : 12/4/2015 11:08:05
cluster 7 3 2664 142000
optimus : 12/4/2015 11:08:09
CPU *Total Total Latency
System (%) Ops (Bps) (ms)
------- --- ------ ----- -------
cluster 5 2 3945 272000
optimus : 12/4/2015 11:08:13
cluster 2 1 959 400000
optimus : 12/4/2015 11:08:17
CPU *Total Total Latency
System (%) Ops (Bps) (ms)
------- --- ------ ----- -------
cluster 4 3 1127 538000
optimus::>
Even if I put load on the system (VM running in NFS datastore) the values basically don't look any better:
optimus::> statistics system show -interval 5 -iterations 25 -max 25
optimus : 12/4/2015 11:10:42
CPU *Total Total Latency
System (%) Ops (Bps) (ms)
------- --- ------ ------- -------
cluster 6 1737 9089108 5020000
optimus : 12/4/2015 11:10:46
cluster 4 1743 8754472 5008000
optimus : 12/4/2015 11:10:50
CPU *Total Total Latency
System (%) Ops (Bps) (ms)
------- --- ------ ------- -------
cluster 6 1736 8726654 5028000
optimus : 12/4/2015 11:10:54
cluster 5 1746 9228116 4998000
optimus : 12/4/2015 11:10:58
CPU *Total Total Latency
System (%) Ops (Bps) (ms)
------- --- ------ ------- -------
cluster 5 1746 9296850 5010000
optimus : 12/4/2015 11:11:02
cluster 7 1681 7337343 5173000
optimus::>
But the reality is, that the VM I'm testing with is doing IO on a mixed 100% random 50% read/write workload at 4.5ms latency and 100% write at 0.5ms latency.
This matches the IO_meter output as well as the ONTAP volume statistics:

optimus::> statistics volume show -interval 5 -iterations 10 -max 25
optimus : 12/4/2015 11:13:06
*Total Read Write Other Read Write Latency
Volume Vserver Ops Ops Ops Ops (Bps) (Bps) (us)
----------------------- -------------------- ------ ---- ----- ----- ------- ------- -------
svm_optimus_esx_demo_ds svm_optimus_esx_demo 1744 869 874 0 3561728 3570216 4361
[...truncated...]
So I assume the command you are using is not showing what you are looking for.
Kind regards, Niels