> I'm wondering if there's a future down the road for multi-platform desktop apps with the convenience of Electron-like development and distribution, but where the native clients are able to be much thinner than a whole browser.

I sure hope so! It's no secret that I've been hoping that someone will put together all the pieces we've been developing—WebRender, Pathfinder, gfx-rs, font-kit, skribo, etc.—and create a lightweight UI framework for Rust. None of us have the time to do so, but all the pieces are there…