Hide (unpublished) for node reference field

I'd also like to know how to remove this. I checked the field configurations and the views that use those fields to see if there are any options regarding this addition, but I haven't found any.

This does not seem to be the case currently. The referenced node is now just wrapped in a <span class="node-unpublished"> element, without additional words.

Can you still see it in any way ?

I don't see anywhere in the Drupal 7 code that outputs (unpublished), whereas in the Drupal 6, it is there in the formatters:

theme_nodereference_formatter_default()
theme_nodereference_formatter_plain()

If you're still on Drupal 6, you can easily override this stuff, since it is themeable
Check out the theme guides if you don't know how http://drupal.org/node/457740

Returning to CCK 6.2.8, according to #2 and #5

The "(Unpublished)" string is properly wrapped with the t() function - so you can "translate" it to nothing. Use the strong override in the settings.php for your site and make it blank:

 $conf['locale_custom_strings_en'] = array(
   '(Unpublished)'      => '',
 );

Since this is so old, I'm marking it closed as well.