It was calculated to save about 50 USD per connection (p2p vs p2mp). Why active I don't know, they may not all be. There were probably also other interests which I would love to know about but I wasn't a fly on the wall when those decisions were made.

The sheer amount of money spent to expand the network after the court injunction forbid connecting those seems sus to me. It will take many years and many more millions to undo.

I should also point out that a lot of this money to expand the fiber network comes from government grants.

If you're talking about 25 Gb/s specifically, standards didn't exist until relatively recently (e.g., IEEE Std 802.3ca-2020, 25GS-PON/G.9804), so if you want to handle those speeds you had to go active.

If you were building out in later 2022 or 2023, you have have (more) 25Gb PON parts available. Pre-2021 your options may have been more limited.