Mine is smallish and printed me a debit card right there in the branch; I'd never seen that before.

Years ago, a largish bank (boa) had given me a pre-printed visa debit card for a new account I'd opened. They had a small stack of them, ready to activate against new accounts. Better than "we'll mail it to you in a week".

Yeah, I was surprised on this one because it was a machine that just printed the front on a blank card - the name wasn't embossed, but otherwise it was a normal card.

Still using it, it's how they do cards now; they never sent an "embossed" one.

My credit union was in Seattle, I was living in SF. For most services I could go to an affiliated CU, for this I could not.

Right. The point is that credit unions come in a variety of different qualities. Some are good. Some are crap. "Always use a local credit union instead of a bank" is not always good advice.