While I don't see the fuss about noise reduction in images. (Come on people did you ever use high ISO film... I have shot a couple rolls of 1200 iso and it looks like the image was on a stucco wall). There are a couple of interesting, low cost, high performance pieces of software.
GREYCStoration I've been playing with in gimp and does a pretty decent of many things. One large images it takes quite a while to process though. Yes I need faster machines at home my lil' ol' pIII isn't cutting the mustard any more.
Haven't played with Picture Cooler yet, (it's windows and I normally don't have a box running any M$ OS). I will soon though and will see what it's all about.