[spewffs]

Yes monads in general are too expressive but the answer isn't to limit the typeclass to something between applicative and monad but rather to limit what monads are allowed. The problem is that there should only be one monad: an effect monad loaded with various effects depending on the side effect needed. Instead of defining this or that monad, there should only be the capability to define the effect you need.

In that case, everything runs within the effect monad and then no one would ever really need to learn what a monad is, just that some calls are effectful (like reading a file or throwing an exception).