I guess it is only a matter of weeks before Mint 18 is released, so an update may change the picture for you (e.g. it may fix your immediate problems, it may introduce others)....with five machines running Mint in our household....
Wine has its own set of problems and frustrations (should have been called "Whine"). As it relies on its own code base, your host Linux, the Windows application you are trying to tame, and the interaction with a bunch of Windows DLLs and OCX components, it sure is a recipe for disaster.
So although you say "it can be made to work" [using Wine], that is no different from saying that LinAXEpad can be made to work on a Linux distro. It is just that there are fewer variables in the latter.
I think I've said this before, but it would be very helpful (and, I believe, beneficial to Rev Ed) if they made LinAXEpad Open-Source. A few Linux people could then fix and improve it!
Rev Ed's business model is about selling hardware, so the better the software support, the greater the hardware sales.