adipe,

I agree about not adding stress risers. Jobst Brandt suggests squeezing adjacent spokes to put the small set in the spoke. I think you could use two pieces of wood stuck through the spokes, with two spokes in between the wood. Grasping both pieces of wood on either side of the rim and squeezing would get you the bend you want, with no risers.

They do (or at least did) make pliers that had flat mating pressure surfaces, with a groove in them. The ends of the groove were radiused. This allowed you to bend the spoke w/o scratching it.

I disagree regarding using greater spoke force to induce a bend. Spoke force high enough to induce an elastic deformation of the spoke will also probably be high enough to pull through the spoke holes or taco the rim. If you don't bend the spokes slightly, then the nipple is canted over and the sides are bearing on the sides of the hole - which itself is a stress riser. Eliminating those side forces on the spoke, nipple, and spoke hole was one objective of Brandt's suggestion. Adding spoke tension doesn't address the key issue. The 170-180kg force on a NDS you mention creates an enormous force on the rim holes and rim structure. You'd be dealing with 200kgf or more on the DS with proper dishing. That's too much for almost any rim. What rims did you lace this tight?

Is the reason you don't like the spoke bend mostly due to possible scratches/risers being created?