If Microsoft made ActiveX open and easy for other browser manufactures to implement in a cross-platform manner, I would absolutely have been in support of it.

If Microsoft made ActiveX open and easy for other browser manufactures to implement in a cross-platform manner, I would absolutely have been in support of it. They didn't, so I wasn't. Standards bodies move slowly. Non-standardised innovation across browsers is absolutely to be encouraged, as long as it is done in a manner that allows others to implement that innovation too. This sort of innovation is what helps us decide what is worth being made into a standard.