The shafts are definitely strong enough to withstand removal and installation of the compressor wheel. Something very wrong happened to your turbo to significantly overstress the shaft. The VNT 15 shaft is intentionally small to reduce mass and spool time but as such I would still feel comfortable using the VNT15 up to about 15-18 psi (I think even at that pressure a VNT17 would be a better choice, but I wouldn't be concerned about failure). The VNT 17 has a shaft that does not have the step in it like the shaft of the VNT 15. It is much stronger and will interchange with the VNT15, but the added mass extends spool time slightly. The compressor wheel on the VNT 17 is also larger and so at max boost it is less labored.
My brand new zero mile VNT15 on my 1.9 mTDI AHU will not produce more than 6-7 psi with the vanes fully open and enough fuel for the EGTs to reach 1400° pre-turbine. I find it unlikely that you were hitting 20 psi with the vanes fully open unless you had extreme EGTs. Probably your vanes were stuck in a semi-open state.
I would never recommend operating a VNT without controlling the vanes. There's no point. There is no advantage to a VNT with stationary vanes as over an appropriately sized wastegated turbo. However, the performance advantage of properly controlled VNT turbo over the performance of a wastegated turbo is almost as significant as the performance advantage of a wastegated turbo over operating without a turbo at all.
dude, ill tell you again..
VANES FULLY OPEN! do you want a picture of how far open they were? ill go snap one real quick.. turbos disassembled on my bench.
the vanes were pointing directly at the shaft of the turbine.. they could open no further.. they are all stuck in the position that i ran them in for almost 50k miles..
my VNT was an anomaly.. it still spooled quick, and performed great for a long time.. ive never heard anyone retain the quick spool/high boost that i had, without operating the vanes.. my VNT still built boost by 18-1900 revs, and still made 18-22psi clear to redline.. all with no vane control.. go figure..
anyways, its completely pointless to argue about this.. im almost positive that my turbo ate something. no turbo will survive eating something..
my VNT was used, with an unknown history.. it was SEIZED when i got it. im VERY surprised i got 50k miles out of it honestly.
in the grand scheme of things, this turbo actually performed AWESOME, but i DONT think i will be installing another..
im out for BIGGER and BETTER things now.. ive had my eye on compounds for quite some time, but never wanted to make the jump because my VNT still worked soo good. but, now its dead, so i have no other options rather than a conventional turbo or 2..
the other idea i been throwing around is SUPERCHARGING it.. M62 driven off the cam or something like that..