I bought a new guitar this year. Almost exactly the same as my old one, except the new one has to have a 9v battery installed.
Now this put me off at first, and its true that I am still struggling to get the sort of sounds that I am accustomed to.
However, a strange benefit has arisen.
I reported a troublesome noise (in studio area forum) while recording a acoustic guitar instrumental. In the past I tried to use my solid electric with an 'acoustic' patch from the Boss signal processor. This did solve the noise problem, but introduced a new one, every time I took my hands off the guitar, the dreaded 'hum' made an unwelcome appearance.
I tried this again with the new guitar, and no hum!
The recording is pretty good and best of all, completely clean. Active pickups are actually good for something after all.