I am no longer affiliated with a University. In the instance that I publish a paper (co-author or otherwise), is it appropriate for me to e-mail my old University and ask them for a staff e-mail? This journal is highly ranked. I don't know how the University rankings work so maybe they will look favorably upon this if more publications under that University's name means a higher ranking expectation.
I used to have a staff e-mail but they destroyed it when my contract terminated.
I'd say whether asking is appropriate depends on whether the paper is still related to what you did at that university.
Whether the university gives you such an email address is quite a different question. My experience is: probably not.
That is, when I moved to my new institute I asked whether I could have a .forward to my new institute for some time. This was not possible, not even with the prof's statement that he would like this, too (the address got prolonged another 6 months, then it was deleted).
The reason for asking was that I wrote a software at my old university and published it with that email address. So it would have been quite in the interest of the old university to stay associated with the software.
I'd think re-activation of an already deleted account is even less probable.
There's nothing stopping you asking for your staff email to be retained. You've lost nothing by asking. In particular, some universities have various forms of affiliate academics, which may allow you to maintain an email. And as you say, if you make the case that this is needed for a publication, then this may add an incentive to approve the request.
More broadly, your affiliation for a publication is distinct from your email address on a publication. Thus, if you still felt it was appropriate you could still put your former university down as the affiliation, while using a different contact email address.
