I just realized the following (note that I haven't actually tested this, as I have no desire to install either game at the moment):

If one of your party members is equipped with a cursed item, and you don't have the Remove Curse spell handy, there is an alternative:

Kill the character. Doing so will cause the character to drop all of their equipment (a mechanic I dislike for unrelated reasons, but it happens to work in our favor here.) In particular, this means the character will no longer have the cursed item equipped.

Then, revive the character. Fortunately, unlike some other games, in the Baldur's Gate series, there is no permanent side effect of allowing a character to die and then reviving them.

Now, there are a few limitations to this trick:
* It won't work for the main character; if you try, the game will notice that the main character is dead and immediately take you to the game over screen.
* It won't work for items that won't drop on death. For example, it won't work for weapons created by spells (except one particular spell in BG2, but those weapons can be easily traded anyway and don't stick), and it won't work for Imoen's Belt (assuming you manage to actually kill her, which is not as easy as it sounds).
* Unfortunately, the games (particularly BG2) have a lack of cursed items that are actually worth equipping. (If only the game had items like Wizardry 8's Staff of Doom, which is cursed with negative health regen but is a powerful weapon...) As a result, this trick is probably not often useful, and not worth the effort of re-organizing the character's inventory. In BG1, where it looks like there might be *some* use for cursed items (I read about a use for the Vampiric Blade; use its reverse drain effect to heal the rest of the party), you are more likely to have access to Remove Curse than to a revival effect.

In BGEE there is a cursed belt of giant strength which lowers your int to 6. But unless you give it to a mage, the only downside is not being able to use scrolls and wands.

You might occasionally want to unequip it though

The claw of kazgaroth comes to mind. I like to give it to characters that don't have bonus from their con, since it has some nice stats, backstory and looks great.

It does in fact work.

...in what situation would one find themselves without 3rd level Cleric spells like Remove Curse but an abundance of 5th level Cleric spells like Raise Dead?

Good question, but there are ways this can happen:
* The party can't rest (or doesn't want to), and doesn't have Remove Curse memorized (because that spell is unlikely to be of use), but does happen to have Raise Dead or Resurrection memorized (reasonable because those spells are more likely to see use). (One could use Wondrous Recall in this situation, but that's a 6th level spell, and the player might want to save it for other uses, or might not want to open the spellbook.)
* The party's wizard hasn't stumbled across a Remove Curse scroll, but does happen to have learned the Wish spell (or Summon Planetar, as the summoned planetar can cast Raise Dead, I believe).
* The party has a Rod of Resurrection handy, but no spellcasters and no Remove Curse scrolls.
* Someone decides to make a mod that randomizes spell levels, and in a particular seed Raise Dead (or Resurrection) is now lower in level than Remove Curse, or perhaps Remove Curse shares its level with other spells that are far more important. (There is apparently a mod that randomizes the locations of certain magic items, but there are many other things that could be randomized, like spell levels or NPC stats.)

The top scenario is not only the most likely by an enormous margin, I'd actually wager that it might be commonplace now that I think about it. You're right, I've always got at least one Raise Dead spell prepped, but unless foreplanned on it, never take Remove Curse.

You are given a rod of resurrection in Neverwinter Nights. And there is no penalty for death. (Unlike P&P DnD, where the character would lose a point of constitution.)

Actually, in tabletop, if you play with epic level rules, you reach a point where resurrection has no penalty. True Resurrection becomes a spell that can be cast as much as needed, the gold cost can be eliminated with a feat, and True Resurrection doesn't have the constitution penalty. Things get even sillier if you are using 3.5 rules (where Heal only restores 150 and Mass Heal only 250), and you are playing at levels where characters have thousands of HP; at this point, the fastest way to heal a severely injured character, in some cases, is to deliberately kill that character and revive them. (That's actually one of the problems I have with the Heal healing cap.) That was my thought, too. With that said, I think it would be interesting if the bottom scenario would come up; somebody makes a mod that randomizes spell levels, which can result in critical spells showing up much earier or later than they would normally. Imagine if Energy Drain were 1st level and Stoneskin 9th; would that affect your strategies regarding those two spells? (Of course, this is probably not going to be balanced; for example, Wondrous Recall can be cast infinitely if it's 5th level or lower, restoring another spell each time.)

I had no idea. (Never played epic PnP.) I concur, that is a very silly concept, where resurrection is easier/more desirous than healing. o_O