Mine dont seem to work like the ones from other homes in skyrim, they dont have the activate option to put a weapon in there, its just the option to close it, have I overlooked something or is it a bug?

No, it's the same for me. I guess they did it to allow us to put more than just a weapon in there. (jewels, armor, arrows, etc)

GREAT- I'm puttting my 100+ key duplicates in there as a display of my pickpocketing skillz

Which would be fine...if the item moving/placement function wasn't so...unfunctional. Had to spend about five minutes trying to get the Blade of Falkreath to sit vaguely right in the hallway display case =/

Hoping I can get a mod or patch to fix that when it comes out on the PC

Yeah it's been taking me a while to get things displayed properly. But it is starting to look awesome.