I have a user that had the 8700 reactivated but did not get back the last 200 e-mails. Is there any way of retrieving but not reactivating?

Nope, sorry. If you are reactivating a device that already existed, the pre-population won't complete. You would have to wipe the device, remove/re-add on the BES, and reactivate.

EDIT: Unless you have a backup of the device prior to reactivating the 1st time...then could do an Advanced Restore to get back the Messages.