Sure Type System....  

I have suffered through the exact same frustration too, so I know exactly of what you speak. My problem is that I wasn't sure what to call the predictive typing system on the Blackberry Pearl, so I searched Google for "predictive typing", "t9 input" and even the "ABC" that's displayed on the Pearl screen if you're in what Blackberry calls "multi-tap input mode".

For the record, it's not "T9" on this phone and there's no reference to "predictive typing" in the 240 page User's Guide either. You need to search for SureType[tm, of course] to find anything at all.

The solution is oddly tucked away in the Language settings of the phone. Here's how I switched out of Multitap and into SureType on my own cellphone:

1. Go to the main applications view on the Pearl.
2. Choose Options (it's the little crescent wrench icon) and select it.
3. Scroll down to Language and click the trackball.
4. Under "Input Language" you want to either select your language with Multitap (to enable Multitap) or without (which puts you into SureType mode). For example, I selected English (United States) to get SureType.
5. Now just click the menu button and select Save and you're back to normal.

I hope that helps you get out of this weird mode. I have to say that I am amazed at just how well the predictive typing capability works too!