Wheel bearings don't get loud and then get quiet. They get loud, then they get louder.
My guess is something got wedged in between one of the front CVs and the inner spindle and it eventually worked its way out. Maybe when you had the car up in the air with the suspension at full droop the debris moved to a location where it wasn't contacting anything on rotation.
Either way if it's gone I wouldn't worry about it.
Regarding the brake pad "spring," that's called a wear indicator, and they used to be very common. Now most cars seem to have electronic wear sensors instead. The purpose of the wear indicator was to make an annoying noise so you'd replace your pads before you had no brakes left at all.
