Absent a 3rd party program how does one access documents saved/transferred to the device. In my old phone (BlackJack) there was a mydocuments and explorer icons etc. I can't find anything similar on the 8310.

Without third-party software, you can't.

AFAIK (I do not have a data plan), when you receive MS Word or Excel files as e-mail attachments you can see their content in your BB.

The only other way is via a 3rd party app. Documents to Go for BB is supposed to be released July '08. (Looking fwd. to owning my own copy.)