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EU has laws that threaten millions of euros of fines for not having things like cookie banners. They are required by law for even the most basic user-customizations. And no allowing users to save state on your page is not unethical.

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Your understanding is incorrect. You don't need to ask consent to saving state that is related to functionality.

you don't need consent but you still have to notify users of all their functionality, often this is done with a banner. Still a burden to everyone involved.

IANAL but the legal advice at my last two places was that cookies that were necessary for the functionality of the product and its features were exempt from opt-in consent under both ePrivacy and GDPR. This includes sessions and preferences.

Cookie banners on page load are not necessary for consent. The user can provide consent at the point of enabling the feature or setting. Of course, non-exempt cookies can not be stored until consent has been obtained.

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