The ball joints hold the load of the vehicle, thats their job. CV's only transfer force to the rotation of the wheels.

 

and the axle shaft with the c/v and the big washer and nut hold the brake rotor and the wheel on the vehicle.

 

After examining some hub maintenence posts, I admit that my post (above) is not entirely accurate. It appears that, because there is no locking hub present, the end of the CV axle is bolted directly to the wheel mounting flange. While there may be other stuff holding that flange in place,I surely wouldn't want to drive a Blazer with the CV shafts removed!

 

When you consider that the 2wd hubs on the newer trucks are pretty much the same as that used on the 4wd, just without the spline in the middle... Even knowing that, I wouldn't leave the CV shaft out of it. If something were to completely fail in the hub, the outer CV joint will prohibit the wheel from coming completely off.

If you were to go through with the removal of the front axle (which I wouldn't recommend), you could always try out a set of 2wd hubs. But I would be a little worried about the integrity of the front frame without the front axle there. Might as well just fix the problem...