Checked Luggage at the Airport: Two Questions

Minor hijack, But if you are flying out of Kuala Lumpur International and are flying Malaysian, you can check in your baggage at the Metro station KL Sentral and then hop on the metro, take the 35 minute commute to the airport sans luggage and with your boarding ticket in hand.

so convenient!

I had seen this earlier this year, specifically advertising golf club shipping…

It looks like United is doing some of this.
Door-to-Door Baggage
You drop your bags off at a Fedex location, and the bags are shipped overnight to your destination. Only available in the continental 48.

More to the point of the OP, a couple of years ago, my parents were going on a long overseas trip, and didn’t want to have to haul all their luggage to the airport the day of the flight. We took them to the airport the day before the flight (under 24 hours) and they were allowed to check it all in then. That was Northwest Airlines, which doesn’t exist any more, but at least recently, it was an option.