1. Can you not, in any way shape or form, sync your entire inbox to a Blackberry 8100 Pearl like a Windows PDA does through Activesync?
Nope. BB's are meant to be storage devices. That's one of the reason's why there is a pre-population rule.
2. When I first activated my BB, I had the folder redirection option available in the Messages options. Now it's gone! Is this because a policy kicked in? I haven't changed any policies on the server...simply because I don't know how to.
The Desktop[CMIME] service book is corrupt. Delete it and resend it from the BES.
In reagrds to correcting the install issue as administrator, you don't need to reinstall. Just follow the article below to create BESAdmin and switch your BES to use it:
BlackBerry Search Results
Make sure to follow it to a tee, missing a step usually makes the BES not work. 9 times out of 10 it's either permissions or the reg keys. If you have any questions about the process feel free to ask.