Rick,
I've never been comfortable with NR.... where someone else decided which frequencies constituted the tape hiss I hear and tried to remove it. When I was 20 my full range hearing tested to 22k. Even now, years later, I'm still never sure what other people can actually hear. So, I've always been gun shy about removing anything from a master.
It didn't used to be much of an issue when home studio Masters were copied to 3-3/4 ips RR or 1-7/8 ips cassette for playback. And people generally used some kind of home playback deck and amp with ample NR and EQ to suit their preferences.
Now, how and when to best deal with Tape Hiss probably still depends on how you're going to copy your Master..... and what playback equipment you expect others to listen through. I suppose most taped Masters will be copied to CD and there are many different ways to do that. But, once digital it can be transfered to any number of other cheezy devices for playback. I don't have answers for how to set things up best for all the digital playback possibilities. The copying/transfer setup is pobably more important now that it ever used to be.
I feel sorry for all the hearphone wearing people that need to playback through their PC at work; or some cheap MP3 or CD player on the bus. They usually don't have anything more than a volume control and "bass booster" if they're lucky.
Rich Smith