I don't see much wrong with the concept behind Java applets. Small downloadable apps that run on multiple platforms, backed by a universal runtime.

The execution was awful, but still.

More like ActiveX components reborn, because these things will only run in Chrome. Much like ActiveX only ran in IE.

They run "on" Chrome, not in it. A separate icon, window, etc. You need to have Chrome installed, but it's different from ActiveX in that you're not going to see "plug-in missing" in the middle of a page somewhere.

Great, phonegap for the desktop :(

Well, Activex was windows only. At least you can run in three big platforms now. And probably Android later. This is not activex, perhaps Adobe AIR is kind of similar, but it was not web centric.