This thread has devolved into pointless philosophical discussion and navel-gazing.

To get back to the point of Dabs' reputation:

Dabs has never given me a reason not to trust him in our eight years of doing business.

Historical / on hold or not, his escrow service is reliable and one of the best games in town.

He easily could have dipped years ago on his obligations.

He just did an escrow for me where he held $4000 for over a week because the terms of a contract needed hashing out: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5448307.0

Not that my word ought count for much, but I trust him. I've met him in person, too, in the Philippines, many moons ago.