Should I be worried about ruining my taper if my non-drive side crank makes the tiniest creak after applying front or back pressure for the first time? Its a single quick pop of a creak, and not loud, but it still has me thinking.

I steel wool-ed and uber cleaned the spindle and crank interface, which minimized the creak even more, but couldn't get it to go away.

Pull the crank arm off, and inspect it very carefully, in bright light (outdoors) and with a magnifier. Make sure it isn't cracked. Other than that, I'm not sure, and I'm not about to re-open the great 'to grease or not to grease' debate.

Are you sure it's the crank? What about the BB? Or pedal?