The biggest advantage of active cabs is the space saving when it comes to transporting racked up amps to make the passive cabs work.
To be honest, the issues of plugs is a bit of a non issue in reality.
Get some of these - [url="http://www.lindy.co.uk/cables-adapters-c1/power-c136/iec-mains-cables-c137/20m-mains-power-lead-uk-3-pin-plug-black-p4564"]http://www.lindy.co....lug-black-p4564[/url] and either zip tie an xlr to it or if you really want a pro job, cable braid the whole lot.
Y cable off for any lights or other electrical items you need to power. All this talk of multiple mains leads everywhere is nonesense - it's all down to a bit of planning; right cables for the right jobs.
For example, in my function bands, all the power is run off a line of plugs behind the band. Any power going forward is done from long leads. No power sockets for the audience to be near and all the power sockets are in one place, as you would expect with a passive setup. Simple... and you haven't got external amps to lug about.
Active power cabs really are very useful - no worrying about minium loads on the amps, just keep on daisy chaining away...
We also carry a stack of XLR cables. Having not to worry about dedicated speaker cables means that we have a load of redundancy against duff cables.
Just a different view really - not saying there is a wrong or a right, but the power lead thing really isn't a reason to stop you using active.
We've got two power lines going forward to the subs - everything is Yed of from there.