+1 for shove being an action. In my case, I find it annoying how it weakens Sleep.
And the examples given by OP show how it's pretty unbalanced.
Furthermore, I find that this tactic of shoving is way overused by the NPCs. It would be nice if it didn't trigger that often.
I don't like the sleep argument, sleep is already one if not the most powerful CC spell in the game. An AoE loss of action for multiple enemies without a skill check, that guarantees a crit, all that packed in a level 1 spell is already silly enough.
I'm mean, given the fixed hit points condition of the spell, you get to put one or two goblins to sleep (and not much other NPCs)...Not that OP. And by the time it gets back to my turn, they've been woken up by an bonus action (not action) of another hostile NPC...Which is over nerfed, in my opinion.
Also, just because a spell is very effective in certain situation, doesn't mean OP.
Sleep is working correctly - and given how dangerous (at low level only), you should happily spend an action to wake your team mate(s) - did this in Solasta all the time. In any case, that is just one example - if sleep is the issue, they can create some bonus action 'noise maker' or something to waken a party, rather than create an OP bonus action shove, which the AI uses at every oppurtunity. As it is, sleep is effectively useless if you are outnumbers, since it costs 1 BA to counter it and if you have many enemies - I was always outnumbered - they can afford spend that.
+1
