Reading this, I can’t help but wonder if you have a very different idea of what “cheesing everything” means than most people, and even players who are down for an old school “give no quarter, expect none in return” type of experience - perhaps even especially such players - are wont to discover this discrepancy in conception of “cheesing” and then leave because they realize they had the wrong idea of the kind of game you were offering.
Yeah, it really sounds to me like your focus on “this is going to be a CHALLENGING game where death is a REAL POSSIBILITY is attracting players who are excited for a game where they get to to use all the tools at their disposal to try to meet that challenge. Then when you take away those tools because you consider them “cheesing,” they lose interest.
I don't see why you'd come to that conclusion, much less why you'd come to that conclusion for other people.
Picking a race with darkvision isn't cheesing. If it's an available option there's nothing wrong with picking it. What I'm talking about is things like abusing Leomund's Tiny Hut and making it into Leomund's Tiny Bunker and turtling within to avoid any and all risks. That's pure cheese. The game has so few actual risks baked into the game, why is there a need amongst players to remove what little risks remain? What's the pleasure in a game without risks? I mean, obligatory "everyone's fun is equally valid" but I want no part of that drudgery. Do players really want to just win all the time without end? What's the point of that?
Resource management is part of the game. Spell slots are used, you run out, and resources get low. Cool. So what's the point of cheesing spell slots with things like the coffee-lock? So you don't have to engage with resource management? Okay...so then why play a game with resource management baked in? The point of the game is risk-reward, resource management, heroic action, etc. Not some kind of weird spreadsheet calculations where you set up the perfect statistical probability of winning everything all the time. The fun is in the challenge. In overcoming the obstacles. In narrow escapes. There's no fun in "yep, we win again...huzzah."
In my West Marches game I told the players that I wanted light to be a challenge and a struggle so I banned light and dancing lights. The players complained. Because they heard me say I wanted it to be a challenge and their first thought was not "cool, that sounds fun" it was, apparently "nah, I don't want to deal with that." I house ruled rangers and outlanders so getting lost and having to find food was an actual challenge. The players complained about that, too. Because when I said I wanted it to be a challenge their first thought was "nah, I don't want to deal with that" rather than "oh, sounds cool." But...weirdly...at no point in the process of me telling them these things did they stop and think "maybe I don't want to play in this game." They pushed ahead and waited until the game was well under way and they learned in game that yep, light will be a challenge and you can't just turtle all the time to bug out.
When I say I want something to be a challenge, I...weirdly...actually mean it. I want that thing to be difficult. It will be a big part of the game and it will not be easy. To which the players responded with trying to find every possible way to obviate those things as challenges. The game's already so wildly easy and tilted in the PCs favor...why the need to remove what little challenges there are? If it was a mismatch of expectations, then it was the players not actually wanting to play the game I offered to run. But for some reason instead of acknowledging that up front, they insisted on playing anyway, and made the game a drag for everyone.