In my priority, if there is two projects, one have the escrow and one doesn't have it then, of course, I would go for the one have it in a heartbeat. I wish escrow would be a mandatory for every bounty campaign in bitcointalk.
escrow just helps you get your coins. I have hundreds of companies that paid me my tokens, but these companies have become a scam and my tokens is equal to 0$. they didn't even trade on exchanges