solution to prevent specific admins from altering site contents

Yes, I use the Members plugin on a few projects where I need to customize or specify certain permissions.

Your workflow would be

• Create a new Role (named something like “Partial Admin” or whatever you’d like to name these people.
• Add those people to this role (removing them from the Administrator role).
• Edit the role permissions (for example, you would add or remove specific permissions for that role such as “Activate Plugins”).

They get fairly specific, but it’s easy to use, and I’ve not really run into any situations where that plugin couldn’t do the job.

Have fun!