A lot of the functionality can be done with multisignature Hive accounts.
Ned/Steemit added Escrow contracts to the chain in a hardfork long past.
Nobody uses them but it seems like we should be using them.
Last time I tried to test them the API I was using threw errors but I'm pretty sure they work if you know what you're doing.
Perhaps demand can come while the idea is promoted. I left out cryptoexchanges. We send money to them and trust them to eventually return something else and not to hold it for ransom of information. It only takes once and all your gains from trading and principal are lost. This couldnt happen if the cex used escrow calls only.