It seems like from this comment and your post that your players just want to spend the session roleplay their characters doing super op stuff and are not super interested in balanced combat or deep character progression despite what they may say. I thunk would good to talk to them about what you’ve mentioned in the post and how it makes things hard on you as a DM. A couple solutions id maybe propose are agreeing to follow raw for the time and not make any rule changes in session and let you run the kind of campaign you want to see if they enjoy a more traditional DND experience. Alternatively maybe that’s not what they are looking for and if y’all have limited amount of time to play every week maybe a different system besides dnd would be more fun and easier for everyone including you. Ive tried monster of the week and blades in the dark with players similar to yours and found that while they weren’t like the most balanced experiences it was a lot easier to do a quick session where everyone felt like they did cool shit and I didnt have to spend sessions checking rules or trying to tell someone the silly thing they wanted to do wouldnt be possible because of bonus actions or lack of feat. Most important things is everyone has fun including you OP! Hope it all works out!
Nobody ever says this about mediocre acts that are really great people in their personal life. You’ll never hear someone say “This song is kinda mid but thats because they recorded it while working at a refugee camp!”