When faced with this situation, I have done two things- besides using Wire-mold.
In one case, I ran MC behind the floor molding, using a steel channel as additional protection.
The other way- one I did in my duplex- was to simply run pipe on the wall, using 4-squares and industrial covers. Before assembly, I painted everything to look nice in the home.
One thing to remember about this really old stuff is that you usually don't have a ground wire, the boxes lack wire pigtails to work with, and are too small for a GFI anyway!
