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.
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.