There have been a few good religious war threads about greasing spindles. I never do it personally.

As for your cranks being good, erpdat, I'm with Spoonrobot - good chance they're still good. Depends on how loose you let them get, how long you rode 'em loose, how much you stood to pedal, etc.

I'm 50/50 on re-torquing cranks I rode loose. Wasted an old Suntour that I put too many loose miles on. Still running Suginos that I didn't torque enough upon install and creaked out on me a few times.

Suginos were the first I installed with allen crank bolts so I wasn't getting near enough torque with the little L-shaped wrench, gotta get an allen socket and put it in a ratchet to get the leverage. Torque wrench even better, but...