My forward stroking is periodically noisy.

But not from pushing with my toepicks, as I've never done that. I somehow am scraping with the back of my blade.

I'm guessing I'm pushing with the wrong part of the blade and should be more toward the center; any tips on fixing this?

Not sure. Maybe you can check to see if your blades are sharp. The blades should be reasonably sharp (as tested with the back of the thumb nails light scraping test). Then at least your blade has a bit more grip on the ice. Push the pushing skate out to the side only. Not behind, not diagonally back. To the side. Maybe you can try focusing on getting the rear inside edge of the pushing skate into the ice better...this will depend on how the weight changes over that skate during that stroke and angle of the blade on the ice. Anyhow, the power generation for me comes first from the rear of the blade of the pushing skate on it's inside edge, followed by the middle of that blade, followed by front part of that blade.

You know, that sometimes happens to me, too, but I've never figured out why. I've always wondered if it comes from leaving the stroking foot on the ice TOO long....

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Something else you can try is alternating F half swizzles in a straight line. From there, gently pick up the pushing foot at the end of the push.

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My coach told me that this was from not skating on a true edge...maybe try leaning more on the inside edge? It helped me.