A basic strategy of using Remodel to upgrade Estates to Remodels, Remodels to Gold, and using Gold to buy or upgrade to Provinces is a powerful but slow strategy, so I haven't been able to win with it.
Are there circumstances in which you would use a Remodel-heavy strategy? Assume there are no Curses. How would it work?
This is basically an extension of the strategy of trashing all your lame cards presented here. Don't limit yourself to only remodeling Coppers and Remodels. Be ruthless about it: if you get a Remodel in your hand, play it, even if it means passing up other actions, and even if it means you won't get to buy anything. This will keep your deck small and powerful. And, as Powerlord pointed out, this applies to Expand as well, and I'd throw Upgrade into the same box. If Workshop happens to be around, it can speed up the process.
In my experience, heavy use of Remodel works best in conjunction with another strategy; you can't usually rely on it exclusively, but it can give you a strong boost. Get into the Remodel game early and aggressively (especially when no other trashing options exist). Most importantly, learn to recognize when other strategies are more powerful than Remodel, and don't be afraid to only buy one and use it only moderately when that's the case.
Remodeling from Coppers and Estates all the way up to Provinces takes a long time, so find a way to buy or gain a lot of Golds through other means, and then use Remodel to bump them to Provinces. Near the end game, you can be especially aggressive with dumping your Golds, even when it drops your coin in hand down and limits your purchase to a Duchy.
It's also beneficial to combine it with attacks to slow your opponents down enough to let your Remodel strategy come to fruition.
Remodel has 2 major uses, both of which apply games of all very strong players.
1: in the early game, if there are no other better cards to take on turns 1/2 like baron/militia/smithy, then remodel can be a great pick because it let's you trash those estates.
2: in the late game, remodel is used on gold's and nobles to get provinces. This will very often swing the game if your opponents do not take remodel at the correct time, and you do.
Remodel is especially useful in games without +Buy, allowing you to make an end-game Victory point purchase as well as a remodel. This can often swing close games to your favor. I'm a big fan of incorporating Remodel into my strategy and I buy them (and cards like it) early and often. Great card!!
I'm not sure why you're discounting Curses here, but...
Remodel can be used to turn a Copper/Curse into any 2-cost card. If you played a Bridge first, you can turn a Copper/Curse into any 3-cost card (because they now cost 2, and a card's cost cannot go below 0).
Remodel can also be used regain cards lost to Saboteur or Swindler.
The strategies presented here also apply to the Prosperity card Expand, but for 3 more.
Remodel is great for turning Gold (3 Treasure, Cost 6) into Provinces (6 VPs, Cost 8,) which can quickly get you tons of points and force a game end. This works especially well with Mine (which is in the "basic" set of cards,) Adventurer, and any card(s) which give +2 actions.
You will also have lots of Gold in your hand following this strategy, so it may be possible to simply buy Provinces outright.
This build can also be done without Adventurer, but you will want to build a small deck focusing on treasure, +card cards, and +action cards.
1) Remodel the Remodel Card for Gold (4+6) 2) Buy another Remodel during the buy phase to replace the trashed Remodel 3) precisely depending on the speed of the current game, shift your focus from Gold to Provinces, remodeling gold to provinces for the victory!
