One thing that keeps me 'passive', so to speak, is the lack of outlets at some places. I guess I could bring another 100' of ac cord and run it all back to my station, but thats more work (to carry, setup, tear down, etc).
Regardless of where I am, in most cases, all audio power comes back to me and then to the wall. This forces use of the same ground. It's really not any 'more work' to extend a power cable out to each speaker.
Maybe - but in the case of powered speakers, if one goes down, the other should keep on rolling. In the event of a passive amp going down, you've lost whatever speakers were connected to it.More components are just more things to fail!