I'm not so sure that we need a specific board for escrow services, it fit into the services section well enough. A sticky thread with a list of escrow providers might help, but I would be afraid that it could be mistaken as an endorsement by the forum. If something goes wrong, such as an escrow provider turning scammer, or a dispute between the trading partners, the forum could theoretically be held culpable. I don't know what laws would be applicable in such a situation, but I would hate to see the forum held liable for something in which it had no part other than a "sticky thread."
I've thought about ways to simplify and expand the escrow services for forum users, but I think to make it work right it's likely to get complicated. If, for example we had a crew of trusted members that are recruited to participate in a community escrow project. Perhaps they are nominated and voted into service by the community. They could employ a multi sig wallet with 3 of 20 signatures required to release funds. The more provider who are involved the faster the transactions could be completed. Ideally the members would be from all corners of the globe, with multiple members from nearby time-zones. Such a project would be hard to coordinate, and not likely to generate much, if any income. The participants would have to consider it as volunteering their time for service to the community.
While I do agree that escrows should be considered services, I feel like what they provide (which is security and scam protection) make it worthy of having its own section so that users can find an escrow of their choice much more easily. The search function on this site isn't the best, so when and escrow thread doesn't get bumped often, it just falls behind all of the other general services being offered on the forum. I agree that the sticky thread may come off incorrectly, and that is why I believe the best way for forum mods to stay removed from endorsing people as a forum would be to just make a community space where this info is easily found instead.
In terms of the complications, I think having the separate section would be helpful because people from across the globe can post there for their escrow services. Then mods don't have to keep track of current escrows and their time regions, but instead the posts can be made individually. I do know that there are cases when high trusted members turn out to have bad intentions, but I would argue that that case is much less frequent than the average transaction scam.
