guess I need to answer here also.

not sure about what "mercenary interests" mean.
in any case I am not the only escrow available. there are a lot of trustworthy ones on bitcointalk and I could have suggested some that are honest and trustworthy. a multisig escrow address could have been created involving the escrows and the team raising the security considerably. though there was no try to speak about something like that. the preico was held by me alone and for sure for the ico would have been something more safe needed. As well as proper rules of partly releasing the funds.
regarding escrow fees... everything could have been negotiated which also did not happen.
I somewhat can understand why they do want to hold the funds that way though I think they miss the importance of the independent party part. they want to set on the trust investors have in the keyholders which they are free to do. Though I have to take my name out in order to not held viable about funds I never held.