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ALT+E, S, V is paste as values. ALT+E, S, T is paste formats. ALT+E, S, F is paste formulas.

Those are the ones I use most frequently and these keystrokes are now deeply embedded in my muscle memory.

BTW, I would take slight issue with your expectations of what a human might expect... I actually think the standard CTRL+V paste does what 90% of Excel users expect.

[Edited to add: this is on Windows, didn't read your comment properly about your experience on a Mac. My apologies.]

This works until you try have to use Excel localized in languages other than English, since Microsoft thought having localized shortcuts was a good idea.

Not a solution for Mac, but PowerToys includes an option to make Ctrl+Shift+V plain text paste globally.

Normal paste (paste values) exists but is a bit convoluted: ctrl+v -> ctrl -> v