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.
But it cost money to hire an escrow to hold funds, i don't know how much though but it differs per escrow, that's just additional fee for the developers on top of the payment for hunters.