The really irritating thing about ActiveX was that you couldn't disable it easily. IF you could figure out how to disable it (they didn't make it easy, certainly too difficult for most users), then you would still be faced with an annoying "This page will not display correctly; would you like to enable Active X?" for EVERY page. MS engineers aren't dumb; I'm sure they realized just how annoying it would be, just as they deliberately tried to annoy people into signing up for a Passport/Messenger account when XP first came out.
I think MS does make good products, but I also see the many big and small ways they insidiously push their technological agendas, from middleware to marketing to user interface. My reason for avoiding MS products when I can isn't because they're inferior--they generally aren't IMO--it's because Microsoft puts its own monopoly power ahead of the user's interest. Priority #1 is ensuring Microsoft's continuing dominance, priority #2 is making life better for the user. Usually they find a way to accomplish both, but when push comes to shove my experience is that Microsoft will put itself first.
Open source, by comparison, is about choice. The Mozilla foundation doesn't have contracts or co-investments with Macromedia, so it has no qualms about allowing the user to easily and permanently disable Flash. It's not pushing technology X down users' throats because it knows it can sell the next version of VisualX if they succeed in getting the market locked into it. Sure, the process takes longer, but I think in the end, freedom of choice and not having to worry about hidden agendas is worth it.
