A good passive is a passive that you're incentivized to adjust your gameplay around.
Morg's playstyle is identical whether she has spell vamp or not, but if you take away Akali's spell vamp, how she is played would probably change. Bonus spell vamp is a good passive for Akali but not for Morgana.
Jinx's get excited encourages her to overstay a bit, to push her boundaries, so she can rush out or rush in even further, while MF's strut actually turns off when she's not just going from place to place.
Then you have passives like Orianna's clockwork windings, but autos feel absolute shit on her, or Fizz's Nimble Fighter, where Fizz would dive enemy champions with or without it. Proper incentives that don't actually do anything.
My personal favorite passive is actually Bard's. It's basically farming things that neither your team nor the enemy team can take from you. It lets you have fun and makes him strong, even if you're losing the game really hard. I've been complaining for a long time that League isn't fun enough for the individual player, and then BOOM, they release Bard.