ya totally, back massage is great!
i don't do the back cracking like that either. it seems ok if ur back cracks itself from u stretching urself, like sometimes in the first giant over esp. on straps, or just sometimes when u feel like ur back has built up pressure or something, u can just hang from the bar or just kind of arch ur back a little backwards, it stretches it out and does get a small cracking noise sometimes. stretching for the purpose of getting that cracking noise i don't think is good tho.