While there's some truth in your point, I think you're being unfair in framing this story as passive investors betraying their own philosophy because they suddenly realize this passivity would cause some "overpriced turds" to be included in their portfolio.

Passive investors did not "backtrack", on the contrary their preference on this matter is that index rules should remain unchanged. Conversely, it seems fully consistent for a passive investor to criticize Nasdaq-100 for actively amending their rules to achieve a specific result.

So I find it rather unfair to conclude that "these people want active investing instead". As far as I know, these people are reacting to "active" decisions (such as Nasdaq-100's) and cheering actual passivity (such as S&P500's decision).

Now, one can argue that there are good and legitimate arguments for the inclusion rules to evolve, but by definition amending the rules is an active decision.