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I was gonna make this another article, but I'm out of time today. ;-) So the summary notes instead.
Ackley's biggest problem was being too passive with pitches he could hit.
Smoak's is that he HAS to be passive because he can't make enough contact with pitches.
Ackley right now isn't drawing walks, but that's because people are still throwing the ball in the zone to him and he's making the kind of contact he should. I expect his walks to go back up once people move off the plate to him (right now he's seeing 10% more pitches in the zone than average).  Smoak is just hoping for 4 zone misses before he gets to three strikes. 
Like you said, Dustin is clearing up his passivity - his next step is to stay aggressive in the zone but avoid pitches out of it... which shouldn't be a problem because he's already good at that.  His OSwing% has always been 20% better than average (which is a lot). His problem was his ridiculously low Zswing%, one of the lowest if not the lowest in the league.  He doesn't swing at stuff he can't hit, so hopefully that continues even in his more aggressive state; it has so far.  If he's done watching pitches he CAN hit sail by, then watch out league.  He wasn't the college hitter of the decade for nothing.  Even a small percentage uptake in swings on pitches he can drive would be a huge help, as this year's small pool so far shows.
Smoak, OTOH, has turned into a groundball maniac early in the season who isn't hitting as many line drives as he used to. And his contact percentages are right about where they always are (ie, a little below league average rate-wise).  He's just not a guy who makes enough contact to expect a sea-change in results just by changing approach, unlike Dustin who consistently is several percentage points above league average in contact, whether inside or outside the zone.  Dustin can put bat to ball - he always has.  When he's not constantly fighting a rear-guard action with 2 quick strikes on him, I'm fascinated to see what he can do.
Smoak just looks like Smoak.  Different approach, new attitude, same results.  Smoak still looks like Spring Training hype, even though he started the year more relaxed. Dustin doesn't look like a mirage.  Maybe Smoak's new approach will provide more results against lesser pitching. I'll take what I can get.
But I save my excitement for Dustin's results, not Justin's.
~G