passive power factor
To me, this is ridiculous, a valley filler could not possibly give power factor of 0.964
It does, exactly. The waveform already suggests a power factor value near to 1.
Also without recalculating the IRF AN details, I'm convinced, that the power factor results are correct. They match the results from your previous literature link, that basically promotes the same circuit
voltage doubler and additional series resistor. In addition, the IRF AN systematically varies the series resistor and shows what must be done to meet certain power quality standards. You'll notice, that the current waveform of the first circuit is nearly indentical to the best circuit in the literature and the power factor similar to my caculated value of 0.97.
i am believing that many companies are wrongly stating power factor as displacement factor (cos phi) alone.
I don't. In case of the present AN, although the displacement (phasee angle of fundamental) isn't given, the given power factor results are only correct if both terms are considered.
As I mentioned in another discussion, you'll have difficulties to find an instrument that is reading a pure displacement power factor. It's very easy to determine P, Irms and Vrms in digital signal processing and calculate the true power factor. Displacement would require an additional measurement or calculations.
i did simulate a valley filler using a SPICE program and it showed the valley fill caps discharging just after the mains peak voltage which is not physically possible
Although you can achieve a lot of interesting artefacts with inappropriate SPICE simulation setup. It's a real simple simulation circuit and should work from the scratch, normally.
Finally, to take up a previous statement from the discussion. An active PFC has still some important advantanges. It can hardly be avoided, if a low ripple output voltage is needed. But that's another discussion.