True enough - I have not yet found any active systems on electric guitars that I felt were better. Actually, to my ears, none of them sound as good as the passive pickups.

On electric/acoustic guitars, the story is a little different. These pickups are usually built into the bridge saddles, which gives them a tendency to be very harsh and jangly. Think Takamine. The problem is that anything else, like a built-in microphone, leaves you exposed to a high risk of feedback from the nearest monitor speaker. Newer active transducer setups are better than the early Takamine rigs that make me wince, but it's hard to get a good sound. They're only acceptable because anything else usually sounds even worse.

The best active 'acoustic' guitar I've ever heard, (and to this day, I regret not buying one), was a solid-body slab made by Cort. It was definitely [u]not[/u] acoustic, but when it was plugged into a good, clean amp, it sure sounded fine!