Yeah...it would be tedious doing it for every single beat....but you don't really need to do that.
I usually look at the two main offenders....the snare and the kick...and I'll visually scan the track, and often there are some hits that peak substantially more than others. I mean...no one hits the snare the same way every time...etc...so I find that if I start by focusing on the odd very high peaks, and lowering them by a few dB...I instantly get that headroom back.
Sure...it's not as easy as slapping a plug on a track...but I've been doing it manually for a long time, and it's not as tedious as it may initially seem.
Heck...if you spend a few hours trying all kinds of plugs and approaches to fix the problem...you could probably run through your tracks in that same amount of time. I rarely have more than 30 tracks on any song...and of those, half are probably ruled out from the git-go as the possible peak culprits...so the rest can be gone through without a lot of work/time.
At first, it will feel tedious even doing a handful...but as you get better sat it, you will be surprised how fast you can highlight a peak, lower its level, and then move to another one. Left hand on the keyboard, right hand on the mouse...and then just assembly line the process.
That said...you have to pick something in your mix as the deciding loudness reference. Everyone has their approach...but I tend to use the drums as my level reference. IOW...I'll set the drum track level, and then I'll bring up the other tracks into balance WITHOUT touching the drum tracks. Once I get the balance...I then see how much more headroom I have left to play with, and then I can raise ALL the tracks equally/accordingly...that way I get more level, and I don't upset the balance.
After that...if I need more, I'll do the other trick...bounce out a mix, bring it back, line it up, and see what combined peaks are keeping me from getting more total mic level, and if it's a combination of say...a snare hit, bass note and guitar note that are linging up together and creating a high peak, I'll lower all their peaks individually at that spot by a little bit.
If I'm working on just the final mix...I can do the same thing...manually lower the very high peaks...and then bump up my overal mix level.
I've done that many times, and found that by doing it in stages...I can keep nudging the mix level higher and higher, and I still haven't put any kind of limiting/compression on anything. Then when I'm done, I can add some limiting or compression to squeeze out more level without need to do extreme limiting and compression.
Finally...how loud are you really shooting for?
I find there are many LOUD mixes that sound good...but then some people want
LOUD...and some want to go even crazier, and get
LOUD, but you can hear the mix going to shit for the sake of that.
So there really isn't any single LOUD standard out there...and if you get it in the ballpark, it's good enough, and you don't have to mangle the shit out of your tracks.