Understanding FICO® Scoring

[Telkari]

So one of the negatives on my account is "There is no recent activity on your credit cards.". I'm a little confused by this because I've had two revolving credit cards that I've been charging and paying off over the past year, and for the entire year this has ALWAYS stayed as the #2 reason for a "lower" score on my report. I even kept a revolving balance on them, purposefully not fully paying them off to extend the duration of activity and payoffs to increase my score.

How does this make sense? Is a year really still too recent? Or is there something else I can do to help it?

[Shogun]

You are doing a PIF every month?  Is it reporting $0 balance every month?  Because FICO doesn't like that.  It likes to see a little balance on a card.  Less than 9% is usually the sweet spot.