Same for me. I think we are all talking like we work on the exact same product. I work at an agency with many codebases, from different clients. Some we inherited that don't yet have good coverage, some with notoriously brittle third party integrations we can't truly test until it is in the live data environment, and some with clients who are very unresponsive and if we planned a Friday deploy the chances of a no-go because we couldn't get sign off or testers is pretty high. It is just all around easier to do midweek deploys in such an environment.
Do I envy the fully automated Friday deployment teams? Sure! But this is my commercial reality, and the pragmatic approach is to not deploy on Fridays.
It sounds like you're deep into scenario 2. The mention of "sign off or testers" is a dead giveaway. "testers" being people not automation. likewise "sign-off".
It also sounds like while you know that better exists, the "commercial reality" is "not on this project". I've been there too. I don't see this as being in conflict with what I said above.
