I believe what the OP's players feel to be a problem is the following:
In all those games where you "only" make attacks (equivalent to melee basic and ranged basic attacks in 4E) you feel empowered to make up all the flavor yourself, as much (or little) of it as you need.
Several posters have essentially only said "play it as intended", which to me doesn't feel as if the poster have even read the OP's issue. Things like "play another game", "use minis and a grid" and the like are decidedly unhelpful, at least in my mind.
Instead, what about this:
1) remove all powers, but use their flavor text as examples of the things your class can do. That is, the list is turned from a constricted list (This is ALL you can do) to an open list of suggestions (These are things you can do, but feel free to use your imagination to come up with more)
2) instead, you simply do melee basic and ranged basic attacks.
3) Have a look at page 42 of the DMG. It tells you how much damage your melee basic and ranged basic attacks should do for different levels. Whether this damage is delivered through a sword, an arrow or a bolt of electricity is immaterial.
4) You might want to use a simple power point system to emulate how some 4E attacks are more powerful than others while still explaining why you can't use only the most powerful ones. (There are several elaborate power point systems in this forum, Fan Creations and House Rules, if you're interested)
5) At-wills correspond to "normal damage expression, low", encounter powers to "normal damage expression, high", and dailies to "limited damage expression, medium". (Looking at the DMGp42 table)
This is only the faintest glimmer of a house-rule, but hopefully you get the idea.
