Building a marketplace like XBTFreelancer costs money. It costs even more to grow to a marketplace with so many users.
One thing I had always hated about the bitcoin community is the cheapness of some (if not most) of its users. What drove people to bitcoin for good reasons (desire to stop paying fees to banks etc) will, in my opinion, be the cause of bitcoin's demise. If a crypto-currency (or any currency for that matter) has no supporting industry or market, if bitcoin holders never spend any bitcoin - then the currency is doomed.
Why would you care posting a project for totally free and have a freelancer pay 5% fee from his earnings? A business needs to earn in order to spend on marketing, on features etc.
You cant compare a forum's sub-forum for job offerings to a complete freelancer/employer marketplace with build in escrow and rating & review system, can you?
I agree that creating something is not free and needs time, effort and money. Bitcoin community is mainly that way because people had enough of leeching.
You are being sucked by everything and everyone, you have to pay fees after fees. And we thought that in bitcoin world at least this part will be a lot less problematic.
I am not surprised that people are not really willing to pay for service when they can do pretty much the same thing but dealing in p2p environment.