This is not to deny there’s an enormous difference between doing research and doing coursework but an M.Phil. student is doing research much as a Ph.D. student is. They’re getting a Master’s as much as someone doing all coursework for an MBA.
In fact, the Spanish system used to be based on 5-year and even 6-year degrees. In the last university reform (triggered by the Bologna process), most universities just split their existing degrees into a 4-year Bachelor's and a 1 or 2-year Master's and called it a day. So the Master's is seen just as a natural continuation of the Bachelor's and those who go to the job market with a Bachelor's as impatient people who are working with an incomplete degree.
Now universities are also offering new Master's which aren't based on the traditional degrees, and those sometimes feel more "graduate", but they're not the majority at the moment.
So I think that the new Bologna system must be 3 + 1.5 or something like that. At least that's how I've seen it implemented in some countries.
To me the 4 year Bachelor's was always a complete degree. It's the 3 year that's arguably not.
During my Master's, I can count on one hand the number of times I went to a lecture hall. Instead I spent my time relaxing at home. Every once-in-a-while, I registered for a bunch of exams, which would then force me to go through the lecture slides at home and practice solving some old exams. I graduated the Master's with 4.0 GPA.
Most continental EU countries used to have a different system before the Bologna Bachelor/Master system. In the prior case, many countries simply did not have a Bachelor equivalent. In France, Spain, Netherlands and Germany, you'd by default do a Masters-level degree. As such, a Masters is more continued education - it does not imply a big cut from a "practical degree" toward research. Therefore, your assessment is correct.
But it is only half correct, because the other side is that in Europe, research universities and their degrees are meant to be for academic purposes. Most countries, especially German speaking countries, have entirely different systems (Vocational, applied universities) for students studying for a job.
In contrast to English-speaking countries, a vocational career is very much a proper thing to do and need not imply "failure" in any way. In fact, the strength of the German economy (and why firms moved back there from China), is the extremely high qualification of the median "technician".
It is still the case that many jobs (like nursing) are not taught at a university, simply because there is no path to academic research. On the other hand, the vocational education is not in any way inferior to a college degree in English-speaking countries.
A university was meant to prepare for academic research. That is why despite the first point, degrees in continental Europe were often more focused on research than on succeeding in a job.
An indicator of this can be seen by the lower rate of college graduates. This is often understood as a negative indicator internationally, but it is not really true. Yes, less people do college degrees, but college degrees are not the only possibility of qualification.
From my own experience, and I think many would agree, I think that the very high quality vocational education (and the fact that it is officially recognized) is equal if not sometimes better to prepare for a job. Especially the dual system, where you learn while working in a company for half the time, and go to a school the other half.
There is no doubt that this system is one of the reasons why the engineering sector in continential Europe has been doing much better than in the UK.
So in closing yes, the Master is a continuation degree. But, from the start, university is much more research focused. These things, of course, are changing now.
The fundamental problem here is that research is inherently uncertain, subjective and requires lots of creativity and independent thought (ideally - whether or not that actually happens is a different discussion). It's very different from undergraduate studies, which are usually 'do as you're told and you'll be fine'. Not everybody is suited for so much independence; in fact, often that do best in the rigid undergraduate system are those that are fundamentally wired to not do all that well in a more free form environment.
None (at least, very little) of that exists in continental masters programs. You just take your courses, do well on your exams, and you're good.
So that's what I meant as the fundamental difference between masters in continental vs Anglo-Saxon systems.
You can do research as a nurse. There are nurses with PhDs even.
Ok? So what? I was replying to 'there is no path to academic research', and there is. Saying not everyone follows it is irrelevant to whether or not it exists.
> also nursing is not always unionized, especially in the South..
What on earth does that have to do with whether you can do research or not?
Of course this very closely aligns the bachelors and masters level courses, meaning that if you haven't done the bachelors work, it's generally harder to make it in the masters, especially for hard sciences. Universities will take your money anyway of course, at best they'll give you a vague list of 'prerequisite courses' without detailing what level you're supposed to be at. So yeah, I can imagine you didn't have a great time given the circumstances, but that's at least partially to blame on faulty expectations, and it's also not what the OP is about.