Well after having broken a number of the Savage XL axles at the start of the threads (See below) I got some "custom axles" made to use the standard Baja 5B 24mm hubs. The 5B hubs are 12mm, instead of the 8mm for the Savage X/XL axles, and they use a 4mm pin.
So essentially I got a new pin hole bored in the axle, and a spacer made (8mm ID and 12mm OD).
Here are the seperate parts..
Partially put together
Complete assembly and comparison shot.
This has lost me about 6mm on the XL width (3mm on each side). Not too bad of tradeoff for what seem like a bit sturdier solution.