Does the word aggressive have a positive or negative connotation? Does it matter if it used like - They have an aggressive sales force. Or. She’s an aggressive player. My wife says more negative than positive. I say positive. Unless you intentionally make it negative by adding - Overly, or something else that implies excessiveness.
If someone described your daughter as aggressive would you be offended? Not me. I think it’s a compliment and I try to instill a degree of aggressiveness in my young daughters.
To me, it completely depends on context.
Aggressive as a personal characteristic seems negative; assertive always seems like the personality type that aims to get the same thing without necessarily putting other people on the defensive.
But “aggressive sales targets”, for instance, is a positive use of the word. Agreed that overly will “negativize” any word.