You are right on the traction required. The traction actually comes from the steel balls giving a little bit at the interface with the race. Sort of like where the tire meets the ground. A friend tried precision ceramic drive balls in a blower thinking since they were lighter they wouldn’t have the tendency to spread the outer races from the centrifugal force at higher rpm. What happened is the balls easily slipped on the inner race. The ceramic balls did not flatten at all at the interface so could not get traction to transfer the energy.
As for Valvoline synthetic trans fluid not working out in your blower I’m not sure what to tell you. I’ve had multiple failures with type f fluid and none with Mobile 1 synthetic. A friend down in Australia just wrote me the other day. He has less than 2000 miles on his rebuilt Paxton running type F fluid and it started growling so is now off the car and into the repair shop.
Also, at one time Paxton Products used the engine oiling system to lubricate the blower. They discontinued that method but I think due to contaminating the engine oil when the inevitable blower failure occurred.