writing -- passive voice

Last night I went online to find ways to improve my writing. I read more on how to avoid passive voice and how to better engage readers in a scene. I then looked at my Disneyland story and did a bunch of rewrites. I really feel I have so much to learn about writing. I should probably take a class.

One of the arguments I read said the passive voice is discouraged because it's a way to to avoid giving more details. In other words, it's the lazy way out of thinking through the story. I don't think anyone ever told me why passive was bad before except that it wasn't as engaging (and the subject/actor were often in the wrong parts of the sentence.) Thinking about passive as lazy makes more sense to me in terms of learning how to revise. I noticed in my story that when I fought the passive voice I usually hadn't painted the scene or the reasoning well enough.

I used to think some people were gifted in writing and others could only do so much to improve. I always saw myself in the latter category. While I still believe some people are just gifted, I wonder if non-gifted writers can be just as successful. I wonder if maybe a mediocre writer just needs to learn how to revise and better picture the scene?

What about you? How do you go about revising your drafts? What do you look for?