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Cleanliness? As in that minor patina might be causing a cracking noise? I don't see how that would happen tbh.
I had the same lateral movement with ultra torque cranks, on some frames it was fine, on others it produced a really annoying click once per revolution which you could feel through your foot.
On the annoying ones, I added extra wavy washers to take up some of the slack thinking it was just manufacturing tolerances in BB shell width. This worked on my Orrell (68mm BSA) and Olagnero (70mm ITA) , but inexplicably did not on my Roberts even with three of them, resulting in adding thread lock and partially unscrewing the drive side BB cup to manually load the bearings that way. This worked but having the cup 2mm unscrewed was a source of concern, and even then sometimes the click would return only to be solved by forcibly pedalling backwards a few revolutions before disappearing. This makes me suspect the way the bearings are seated around a fixed distance axle can be effected by frame/bb flex and that if your BB is not perfectly round or distorted this will accentuate any problems.
At that point I really despaired of fixed length BB's and went back to square taper on my tourer and had zero issues. All this made me highly suspicious of the SiSl's on my CAAD 10 but they've been hassle free and after changing the rings and spider over didn't secure them with loctite or anything; I do not have any gap exposing the washer at the bb though, it's near flush with the seal as it was prior to me servicing it which makes sense to me in terms of not wanting dirt and water flushing into your BB shell.
Anyway, if I were you I'd try another fixed axle crank to see if you still have problems, as if so it'd point to an issue with the BB shell.
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I'm trying to explore all options for resolution of this issue at the moment.
Ed- you asked how easily the axle/spindle went into the bearings recently, I had the whole thing apart last night and they do go in very easily - the OD of the sections that sit in the bearing is bang on 30mm, and go in more easily than I recall the older 104mm axles ever doing.
Was there a reason you asked this, i.e. have you seen variable results that you ascribe to different axles?
It seems to me that the axle is designed to float somewhat - just under 1mm of float seems to be granted by the wave washer. However it may be the axle fretting inside the bearings as it moves laterally under high load, rather than the bearings moving in the shells.
I simply don't know, so am seeking experience on this.
Here's what the inside of the BB looked like before I reinstalled everything last night (with grease):
To clean them up further will require the ream to be deployed (Monday), but what is the hive-minds opinion on the current state of cleanliness?
The bike was cracking away this morning.