consensus on passive preamps?

I have gone from passive to active for practical reasons. When my child was born in seemed prudent to move as much equipment away from curious fingers as possible. Longer interconnects were required and the demands for a sucessful passive system were no longer possible. In acitive mode I get a bit more bass impact and dynamics. In passive mode a bit more purity of sound. These effects are pretty subtle. One curious thing I discovered was that my purely passive device sounded better than my active device with gain stage removed (via a switch) and used passively. Now this all went on some time ago. Hence for reasons of lack of funds and extreme caution re: expendenture on a new hobby (read cheap)I wasn't using the best equipment. One of the best amplification rigs I've heard was the "First Sound" with a passive line stage and a dual mono class A amp. The key to making passive work is to do your home work, the requirements are fairly strict. Whether passive is better, I don't know. I would consider acive first, but wouldn't rule out passive. Interestingly enough, some of the origianl manufacturers of passive line stages went onto unity gain devices. I have not tried them. Perhaps this is the best compromise? The future of digital amplification may make all of this moot.