The only experience I've with active pickups is with the EMG brand, so I cant speak for others. I think when it comes to imposing tone, passive pickups are the ones that are dominent Perhaps because activce pickups offer a flatter frequency response, since they depend on electronics for their output strenght as opposed to magnet size and amound of windings.

I just installed the EMG James Hertfield set on my LP, to replace the 81/85 set. To be honest, they are a completely different beast. Its like the best of both worlds, and they sound great on clean and distorted effects.

Speaking of effects, I had to tweak the settings on my Digitec RP500 because the Het set had a higher output than the 81/85 combo.

I perform in a virtual world called Second Life, and below is a link to a video of a tune I recorded during a show. I used some overdrive and some delay.. Next will , i will post a video which demostrates the clean side of those awesome pickups.