pretty much a pipe dream in the sense that it would require a wholesale re-balancing of both PVE and PVP, but i need to get this off my chest.
What i am thinking is that Instead of having the active defenses be a all or nothing (negation) thing, how about they provide a temporary reduction of incoming damage?
This way they interact with passive defenses rather than overriding them (and thus making them pretty much worthless).