Right, I would say that's just sloppy writing in general and not sloppy because of the use of active voice (and certainly an example where passive voice is better).

You're right in terms of what I meant by "clarify", which was more about writing that looking less "sloppy". The examples I think about aren't ones where the investigators are referring to themselves by "We" but where you're writing a paper about molecules interacting with each other. So something like "A activates B, which in turn inactivates C" reads more smoothly than any of its passive-voice counterparts.