In light of the discussions above, I have been experimenting with the noise reduction in both linear and non-linear formats and have to say that, while I recognize that you can tackle noise in the linear stage, it seems to create all kinds of problems and artifacts (at least for me) that I do not see when saving noise reduction to the non-linear stage.
As such, I am adjusting my workflow to save all noise reduction for post HistogramTransformation.
I would love to hear others' views on this.
Thanks,
Jim