Combat is the ultimate arbiter and in my experience, 9mm wounds, .45 kills.
I strongly suspect that your experience involves military ball ammunition.
How many people have you shot with a 9mm using the latest bullets in the last couple of years? .45 with FMJ is indisputably better than 9mm with FMJ but they aren’t using FMJ anymore, even the Army is thinking about going away from it. I have seen a study which catalogued thousands of actual shootings and the .45 did a little bit better than 9mm but probably not enough to make a real difference. In my reading of it, I came away with the idea that pistols generally wound and rifles generally kill.