Something that has been perplexing me is.. is there a way to remove points from a curve (either poly line or nurbs) without deleting the segment attached to it, basically sort of an “unrefine” of the points. I haven't been able to figure out how to do this, any help is appreciated.

behavior of the delete key was changed in houdini 10

try selecting your points and then use the tab menu to place down a blast