merge replication too big

I have multiple handhelds which sync their data via merge replication. From time to time, new core data is imported on the server-database. For various reasons I keep the old data in the databse and set a flag deactivated = 1. In a filter I only download rows where deactivated = 0. The core-data I'm talking about are 6 tables. Each has hundreds of thousands of rows. About 30,000 rows are sent to the handhelds during syncing. The .OUT-File in the MS SQL CE-folder on the server has about 10 MB (!). On syncining via gprs I receive this error >SQL CE error 28562 - Failed to create the Delete message to send to the Server. Any ideas how to handle this problem? Mobile DB: SQL Server CE 3.1 SQL Server 2008 R2