I still have absolutely no clue what the point of an Activated BOM is.

I've been using PDM in varying capacities, on and off, since 2008.  I even worked in the VAR channel for four years, and would've had ample opportunity to ask about it.  But if someone asked me what to do with it, I have zero answers.

The only thing I know is that I can (a) use user/group permissions to control who can activate/deactivate