Okay guys, appreciate everyone's help, but still quite nervous about this. I decided to go ahead and put a new pinion nut on, so today I redid everything. I noticed when I had the flange off that the pinion would slide into the housing a bit, so I put the flange on, then the nut just a little, then pulled on the flange to pull the pinion out as I started tightening, figuring this would seat the bearings correctly before tightening. Tightened it down to 145, and now the pinion feels much harder to move than before, significantly harder than the front end.

Should I have just let the nut pull the spindle into place instead of holding it out with the flange? I'm thinking now I should just pull the pumpkin all together and do it that way. Sorry for seeming paranoid, I just don't want to burn up the gears or anything. I suppose my only risk on this particular issue would be burning up the pinion bearings, no?