Myself+2 went through YVR yesterday.
I had advised my companions to bring their physical cards, and they were checking them as in my other recent experiences at YVR and YYZ.
There was no line at the time, so I pretty much went up to the camera, then the front of the holding pen, then the beckoning officer without meaningfully breaking stride. Whlie I would still describe it as "with ease" I did get asked, as a US citizen, where I was going and whether I was traveling by myself. I indicated my companions who were still apparently struggling with the kiosk. The officer mentioned two things to me, first that +1's bag* seemed to have some items in it (I truthfully answered that they were snacks/candy type things) and, more surprisingly, that it seemed like +2 didn't have GE which was why they were having trouble. However +2 definitely does have GE, and I said I could pull up the number if needed** but he said it was ok he'd just process manually.
Once we were reunited 15-30 seconds later, +1/+2 said the delay was due to the kiosk asking +2 to insert a travel document despite there being nowhere to do so
but that they went to another kiosk and that gave the green light. /shrug
*I had noticed, when we checked in, that after printing out our bag tags, the ticket agent was careful to ask whose was whose and applied tags to bags accordingly. I thought this was just good service (although I took pictures anyway, ever since a trip where our bags got delayed and we were splitting up after the airport and didn't know whose bag was whose) but then when we went through GE it occurred to me this might be for bag/passenger matching reasons.
**EDIT: I only just now realized
as I mentioned we used our physical GE cards to access the expedited security lane (before getting to USCBP) so, had it been necessary, +2 could simply have produced the membership card
