Going off topic: I don't like cursed items. But I suppose I should elaborate on that. I don't like items that are basically traps that you can't easily identify. I do to this day use items that have unforeseen side effects and drawbacks, and sometimes yes, divesting yourself of the item does require magic.
But in my mind even a cursed item should have potential use as something other than a trap to the unwary. But a magic sword that makes you fight your allies, a cursed cloak that instantly kills you, or boots that make you dance like a fool in combat? I don't see them as being very fun.
I see cursed items as just another hazard; and I've both DMed and as a player encountered all of those specific examples.
A far more insidious curse, which as DM I've laid on a few characters* over the years, is what I call the "minus curse". How it works: every time you roll any die or combination of dice
for any reason whatsoever, that roll is at -1...unless you want to roll low, in which case it's +1. If not found and dealt with this curse can have permanent consequences, as it even affects things like hit point rolls on level-up.
* - once or twice via cursed item, other times by trap or glyph-like effects.
Magic items are a potential reward, it's bad enough when the party can't use a given item, throwing cursed widgets in the game is about the same as giving the party 10,000 lead pieces painted gold.
You hit the nail on the head, though:
potential reward. There's a few more steps before that potential becomes reality, one of which is making sure the thing's not cursed.
I used to use "harmless" curses that didn't affect your character in a physical way, like the infamous girdle of masculinity/femininity, but I've since learned that sort of thing requires buy-in; some players are uncomfortable with that, and a few are outraged that a DM has "violated the borders of their character sheet"- death, mayhem, and dismemberment, that's a part of the game. Fundamentally changing who their character is? Beyond the pale.
If a player were to come at me with that, the resulting argument would not be pretty - and I'd win it every time. Bad* things can and eventually probably will happen to your character; and those bad things may include fundamental alterations such as gender change, species change, alignment change, height and-or weight changes, growing new unwanted appendages, etc. I don't - and shouldn't have to - spell out every possibility...if only because I want to reserve the right to come up with new ones.
* - though I've sometimes had the victims' players see these as good changes; one time I even had a player thank me for an unplanned gender change to his character, which started as male but the player soon realized would have - and later did - work better as female.
