In the Renault set-up, the half-shaft does not carry suspension loads. The roll pin just holds the half-shaft in place. There is no load on the roll pin.
In the Europa, the half-shaft takes the suspension loads and it needs to be carefully shimmed so the yoke does not bottom on the output stub axle which would then feed the loads inside the diff rather than to the large diff carrier bearings. Nominally the roll pin still does not take any loads if it is shimmed absolutely perfectly. In practice, it is not uncommon for there to be a slight load on the pin as it is not easy to get the shimming perfect. This results in the pin eventually shearing but, as long as the shims stay in place and not too stressed, everything is still ok.
The Lotus design is quite clever with one minor and two major issues. The minor is that the set-up will weep oil. The major are that the weeping oil will lead owners to change seals unnecessarily and, most likely, incorrectly; and, that owners do not check the half-shaft shimming often enough. It is to be checked at EVERY service. So, every 3000 miles/5000 km.
This is a common theme to early Lotus car design. Clever, well-thought-out, race designs not making a good transition to a road car application. Race engineering bears little application to road car design. Load bearing half-shafts have been successfully used in other applications (Corvette as one example) because they were design by engineers conversant with road car applications. Not just trying to make some money on the side to fund the race team.
None of the above is a criticism. You just need to be aware of what you are getting into when you buy an early Lotus.
