As for the Essence, I agree with Adriaan, Keith, and Peter. When I had my Essence upgraded with a Q switch, I was told (by Mica and/or Val) that the standard Essence package has the Q hardwired to always be on, to always boost the cutoff frequency. The upgrade to add the switch gave me the option to turn off the boost.
I don't know about the Activator packages (or if I did, I no longer remember), so I can't speak to those.