I use VZW as well, and I am not on a corporate BES. I have the connection type set as BIS. Unfortunately, I'm really not sure what to tell you about the font settings. Are you being sure to save the changes you make?
The connection type is BIS or BES depending on what you use, if you have the BB from your company and synchronize contacts, calendar and tasks wirelessly then you're on a BES, if this is your private BB and you can only receive emails but have to use the desktop manager to synchronize contacts and calendar and so on then you are on a BIS.
The fonts should make a difference in the preview part on the bottom part of the screen, the upper part is set to the fonts you set as your phone font set.
If you enter your APN-settings - if you don't know what I'm talking about, just don't read the rest ;-) - you should be able to chose from BES, BIS and TCP, where TCP will provide a better and faster connection but it might cost extra, depending on your data plan.
The fonts should make a difference in the preview part on the bottom part of the screen, the upper part is set to the fonts you set as your phone font set.
Actually you can change the fonts in both sections.