I think there were other movies where the zombies could be cured, even as recently as Boy Eats Girl. The mother was horrified to find her son had committed suicide when actually had she knocked him off his stool and lynched him, so she brought him back with an old religious book but botched the ritual. I seem to remember him being normal at the end of the movie but it has been a while since I've seen it so I may be wrong. I think it had something to do with a missing ingredient from the rebirth elixir or something.
Depending on your opinion of a cure, the Japanese flick Stacy went on to tell of a new race of people that came forth after the initial 'eat everybody' instinct gave way to flesh-eating lolitas becoming docile lovers (apparently for that sole purpose). This one is probably one of my all time favorites because, well, zombie Japanese schoolgirls being hacked to pieces by their families as ordered by the government...that's hot and sick.
Then there is of course another great flick which I am about to go watch, Undead. A meteor falls to earth in a small Australian township and every living thing becomes a flesh-hungry undead creature. Not to ruin the movie for anyone who hasn't seen it (and if you havent you need to), but there is a cure for the zombie status effect.
Death would be a sweet relief from being undead if you found yourself muching on brains in The Return of the Living Dead series, because apparently it hurts to feel yourself rotting. But no luck, nothing will kill you short of fire and I suspect it doesn't feel to good to be a pile of ashes either. C'mon, if a skeleton can feel pain, why not tiny bone fragments? That series aside, who wouldn't want to be in the zombie regime?