There are a number of questions addressing the desirability and/or feasibility of a slower reentry from Earth orbit in order to reduce thermal load. At least most of them run into the problem that once you are significantly below orbital velocity, the atmosphere is either too thick to decelerate slowly, or too thin to provide lift, so you are committed to a fairly rapid descent.
However, suppose you are going significantly faster than orbital velocity to start with, most likely because you are returning from the Moon or Mars. Is there merit in planning an initial trajectory for aerocapture rather than reentry? You would end up, hopefully, in an elliptical orbit with maybe a 12-24 hour period which would allow for radiating away accumulated heat, and a systems check, possibly followed by a few aerobraking passes to lower the apogee, before finally committing to reentry.
If the systems check revealed problems after aerocapture, a rescue mission might even be possible.