I've look all over the place, and can't find the answer to this. If my BES admin is disabling text messaging as part of IT policy, would that affect my data connection (non-email)? I don't know if the 2 are related, but I noticed that the SMS option went away about the same time as the data connection (EXCEPT e-mail) went away. Oh, I use an 8100 on t-mobile and corporate BES.

The IT Policy that your BES admin puts on your device can disable a great many features.
If they disabled SMS messaging, it's likely that the policy also placed restrictions on data usage as well, since the two features were affected at the same time.

Just ask your BES admin.

Thank you for the quick response! I'll try to find out tomorrow. So that I'm prepared tho, is it possible for them to restrict/block SMS without affecting the data connection? I like the data connection, and would like to be able to propose an alternative if they have in fact closed it all off. thanks!

Yes.