>the ability to run activeX.

All those things are available in Electron because of NodeJS. NodeJS is running the interface between the OS and Electron. In fact there are two processes running and they talk to each other. BTW you can review some of the available modules for NodeJS here:
http://node-modules.com/

And for activeX here:

http://node-modules.com/search?q=activeX

Just to be clear - realize that NodeJS is running on the clilent side. Normally, people would think of NodeJS on the server side.

Everything is in place to write great desktop programs using Electron. And of course you can use many of the web frameworks out in the wild web. But I'm sort of thinking that all those web frameworks are over kill. I played around with a simple CRUD program just using jQuery and it worked. So I kind wonder if any of the web frameworks are just more over head. That said, I'll bet that many will want both a web interface and a desktop interface. If that's true then it would make sense to use a web framework to allow code re-use. But since the desktop is what I want and need - just maybe I don't need the over head of a web framework.

And one other thing I really like - I can use all the CSS I can think of to make a program with visual pazzizz.

If you want to see how well Electron stuff works check out 'Atom' - a very cool program editor. It runs on almost anything.
https://atom.io/

Johnf