Hey,

I will tell you of my experience on activating my old phone.  First, I have a Motorola Droid 3 that I upgraded from a Blackberry Bold.  I activated the Droid 3 and it worked fine.  I then, like you, wiped the Blackberry and tried to use it with just WiFi.  I had to reactivate it, or so I thought.  What I did was to log onto My Verizon and reactivated the Blackberry and it worked fine.  I set everything back up on it, email and BB Messenger.  Then, I went back onto My Verizon and reactivated the Droid 3.  I had turned the radio part of the Blackberry off and left the Wifi going.  It worked.  I can use my Droid 3 as normal and my Blackberry with just Wifi.  All you need to do is to log into My Verizon on your computer and try it.  Let me know if this works for you.

Doc