IMHO Alvin suggestions are correct but are moving the problem away so I judge them a bit off-topic. There are many cases where you start from an unecessarily complex path which you need to simplify and working on the source is not always possible. Personally I'd prefer to see the proposal from Alexander realized: find the control points that minimize the distance from the original path. It would be very useful for my workflow too: I often have to do the same, i.e. keeping the reference in a bottom locked layer and readjusting the (usually very wrong) simplified semi-transparent lines. It's a very time-consuming process.
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