thank god! I dont think i was the only one beginning to get antsy lol

as for the question reegarding 'why no escrow?', i would assume simply because escrow adds some delay because of the third party confirmations, and these guys likely want the BTC as quick as they can in order to fund the next batch. if they had to wait a week to clear the escrow, it might mean an extra week before they can pay for the next batch of chips or pcb assembly, just a guess.