I don't think escrow should be removed in any way. The only additional piece of information you as a seller need is one more stat from the buyer - autofinalize/total transactions. You already have all of the information - how many transactions they have done, and what % of those transactions they have had issue with.From this, you create a policy. This is what I hav done. I don't any buyer use escrow that has 3 or less completed transactions, and/or a refund rate over 0%. They have to use direct buy, and do not qualify for discounts. For established buyers I offer an either/or. I give you a price discount and free shipping if you use my "custom/bulk orders" option and send the rest of the funds up front, or you pay full pop if you want to use escrow.Most established customers on here PM me and say they want the discount for direct-buy. I am more than happy to oblige, because the money I lose on the discount is about equal to value I feel I gain from being able to recontribute to my float immediately. but some opt for escrow, and that is cool. If I see something funky in their stats, I will message them and tell them to get an established vendor to vouch for them. This is another reason I recommend customers post to my forum topic after they have received the product - I can refer another vendor to the forum topic and tell them to do business with you, if they have any doubts.I have piled up a lot of transactions on here by now. My feedback rating is currently 99.9% and I'm over the max showable transaction number (by a lot). I think this is because of communication. I message my buyers when they purchase, even if there's no issue just to let them know I'm acknowledging their buy, and I always try to send a follow up message once they have received. If buyers have any questions I try to get right on them and grab them an answer (which sometimes requires a fuck of a lot of typing). I think this is the difference between a 99.9% feedback and a 95% or lower feedback - customers know I'm not fucking around because I take them seriously.There is an important point to be made, as far as being able to put up the direct-buy option in the first place. I waiting until I had 100 completed in-escrow transactions before I even made it an option. I don't think new sellers, or even sellers with only a few dozen completes, should be demanding OOE. Buyers, you should be rejecting this 100%. Any seller that completely rejects escrow period should be ostracized by the buyer community. Despite the centralization aspect, it is the thing that has kept SR growing and keeps customers around for the long haul.Yes, escrow pisses me off sometimes, and yes, every single OOE order I have ever shipped has arrived and the only two problems i have had have been in-escrow customers claiming they didn't receive. But I'm not going to refuse the system. That's not what selling on SR is about. The only other piece of information I wish I had access to was how often a buyer lets things run to autofinalize, because that always annoys me. I KNOW they are sitting at home smoking my product for days before my funds are released. It's not a problem that happens a lot, but when you've got two or three ounces out of a pound you shipped that week that are rolling on to auto-finalize, it can be irksome.Anyway this became a massive rant so I'm cutting it off here. Bottom Line: Refusing escrow should be ostracized by buyers and called out. It's a potential scam in the making - if a seller happens to hit a huge volume of sales OOE he might decide to pack up shop for his "free" 5 grand and return in a few months and start over as someone else. Don't tolerate it. Options are nice, dead refusal is a no-no.