Digital BW, The Print

I am scanning 35mm negatives with a Nikon 5000.  Though the film is 
squeaky clean to the eye, the scanned images are filled with spots 
and linear scratches.  At 100% view, panel by panel (page 
down/control-page down) I am spending three to four hours spotting 
these images.  The healing brush is a tremendous advantage, though on 
this dual XEON computer with 1 gig of ram it is rather slow, 
requiring hesitation between spots to allow the image to update.  
I've tried spotting at a 50% view and it just isn't good enough 
(spots come back to haunt you, particularly after sharpening) though 
it's much faster.  

A few other related issues:

Digital ICe doesn't work and the BW film, but might it work on the XP-
1 I used later in my career?

I am doing noise reduction (Neat Image) before spotting and 
sharpening much later in the flow.

Any experience or thoughts on all this?

Thanks,
Walt