It takes some time to get used with active steering(1-2 weeks) but after that you can't live without it.
I also have a X5(E70) without active steering and every time I drive it ,I find the steering heavy and less accurate than the active steering from my X6.

In my opinion the Active steering and Adaptive drive are the best options for X5,X6

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X5 - 2008 - 3.0d
X6 - 2009 - 3.5d