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As an addendum, my simple expedient WRT to cursed items comes from the rules themselves, though it's not an actual rule. The description of the cursed items often state how they will be mistaken for another similar item, and often specific examples are given. I just extrapolate that to apply...

The first time I noticed the mimic had a 10 Int and spoke Common, I gave it a sarcastic and insulting personality to goad the party into killing it. They left it alone and lost the opportunity to gain a +1 ring of protection.

There are better ways of doing that than by making identify more trouble than it's worth though. I go for the simple expedient of cursed items failing to identify properly and misidentifying as something beneficial until used in a critical situation like combat. Just use more ghosts.

All these strange little rules is why I'm trying to hammer an old school ethos into 3e rather than trying to house rule 2e. Here's the thing though: 2e is written with the idea that people DMing it already know how to DM, the 1989 DMG advises new DMs to start with D&D, which at the time was...