The general rule I use for this situation is: I don't care who drives, but the passengers should pitch in for gas if they can. - RP leaders usually like to be led sometimes too.

Anyway, as a player, my most successful characters can have a few hooks I can throw in to make things more exciting. Sometimes from a character view I can throw these in from something someone else does. A simple action/reaction sequence that will make a night's roleplaying a little better for those around me. (A sidenote: those characters that don't quite work out for me, I seem unable to come up with these little things to do on a character to character level.)

From the staff angle... I have a weakness for trying to find a balance between what is done on a character level (such as day to day interaction, player generated RP), and what should be done on a larger level (the staff generated plot ideas). A part of me writes up ideas and wants to execute, while the other part keeps saying: "Hey, there are things going on that don't require you to keep making drastic changes."

For me it's a balance. Though so far most of my efforts and philosophy have been leaning towards generating more player level roleplaying, rather than spoon feeding activity. Though as I said, bigger things have their places, I just don't think everything should be some huge thing.