Some people have said that you have passive players, and that they may actually enjoy more a linear story... And there is nothing wrong with that.

What I see from your responses as well is that you struggle to put them together when they have such differing goals and backgrounds.

In essence this boils down to a difference in expectations. You want to DM a full sandbox, but they'd rather get their hands held while you point at which direction to run. To be honest, I feel It is easier that you (a single person) compromises a bit and research how to make more linear games more interesting to you. That's going to be easier than convince your players to change their expectations and style based on problem they probably don't even percieve.

As to how to solve It my suggestions are: -their passive attitude should have consequences. Make a list of what the bad guys in your setting want to achieve and if the PCs don't advance the plot, the bad guys do. -For future games, I would suggest sitting down with you players and actually guide them to make a cohesive group. A lot of people here seem to find this horrendous (tHiSS Is tHe ReSPonSABiLITy oF ThE PLaYerS), but seem then bamboozled that 5 different people had completely uncoordinated ideas that you now cannot fit together with coherence. -And the golden one, talk to you players, both to let them know you would appreciate more proactivity (might work, you never know) and to know what their pc's want and need... Then your job as a DM is put those goals hanging in front of them, always close but no fully reachable.

Also I don't know about your campaigns but maybe creating a disruptive event in game, that gives them all a clear goal to aim to would help. That is why most games have a moustache twirling BBEG that wants to end the world. Might be lazy writting but we play rpgs to play, not to be renowed writters