" You can't cos it's a 50mm axle."
This isn't the only problem, and blaming it for all the failures makes it seem simply your bete noire and that reduces the validity of your post
The use of nylocs etc are not restricted by being a 50mm axle because the nylocs in question are secured to the spider, not the axle.
Nor are 50mm axles a problem of themselves. They simply have a different form of failure.
Using the old 30 and 40mm axles, with a circlip at the end to prevent spiders falling off, there was a common failure of the spiders sliding in towards the chassis and ripping the tyre open on protruding bolt heads. So much so that we commonly stuck a bit of downpipe over the axle to stop the wheel sliding in too far.
It does seem that 25mm stub axles are more likely to crack than the solid 17mm ( I've seen a couple), but the 17's came in to combat the bendability of the 11's and brought their own failure modes such as bent king pins.
You are right in that there does seem to be a failure mode on comparatively thin walled axles, even though these are technically stronger than the thicker walled 40 and 30 mm axles. The problem is what to do about it.
The axles do seem to be faster than their smaller counterparts and the vast majority do not fail. At a guess more rear wheels fall off because the mechanic failed than because the axle failed. The most effective tool might be a plastic covered tick off list and a magic marker ....but this has a simple failure mode, and even with two people cross checking the lists (as in aircraft) have been known to fail, let alone the 'box-ticking' mindset.
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