It depends on how the applications have to be installed. Apps via the Mac App Store do not require an admin account and can be installed by a standard user. Apps distributed in the form of an Installer package will normally require entering an Admin level user name and password no matter whether you are logged in as a standard or admin level user.
The way a lot of larger organisations get round this is to use a computer management system like Munki, Simian, JAMF Casper Suite etc. These provide your own corporate equivalent of the App Store and allow users to select which apps to install. The system then handles the authorisation invisibly for the user. (I use Munki.) These systems will also handle distributing and installing updates as well again without the user needing to be an admin level user.
See https://www.munki.org/munki/
or https://www.jamf.com/
For printer management you are right, you can use the security command to change settings so standard users can make changes to the printer settings. The following are the two commands I use for this.
/usr/bin/security authorizationdb write system.print.operator allow
/usr/sbin/dseditgroup -o edit -n /Local/Default -a everyone -t group lpadmin
