OP is apt on this and I share in their thought. Perhaps theymos should make this a governing rule.
Keeping bounty funds in escrow does not stop I'll treatment on the hunters by projects. Some projects can be outright scam yet funds are escrowed that re ders the tokens useless upon distribution. Stable coin payments bounties should be encouraged.
At least, the BMs should do their research before accepting the contracts and be true to themselves not to only concentrate on what they can get out of the bounty as payment at the detriment of hunters. I know quite alright that BMs get paid in BTC or other already listed coins like ETH/Litecoin, other than the bounty tokens. So, to a greater extent they're exempted from the hardship hunters go through after bounties have ended.
I'm quite sure every bounty manager would had love to escrow the bounty allocation to prevent cases of their participants not getting paid but I don't think they're to be blame since the project developers hiring the bounty manager has the final say as If they're not interested in escrowing the funds there's nothing the bounty manager can do and if he/she regrets the job, other managers will be willing to take up the job.
That is why the BMs have to be less self-centered. They should insist on escrow and know that whatever that will be will surely be. If it's their contract to get, it will surely cone back to them. They don't have to lower standard so they can get a bite out of every pie. How do you think Julerz makes it? Do you think he hasn't lost some contracts for insisting on escrow or whatever that is right?