Prior to mine, all votes were saying, yes, escrow on Bitcointalk works 100%. I don't agree. In my local board alone, I can remember 2 escrows, one reputable across the forum, who kept escrowed money with them when they went inactive all of a sudden. On top of that, even our moderator, an early adopter who also offered escrow services for years, also ran away with huge amounts of borrowed money.

I voted 'would be worse without', but you have to pick the most trusted option.