A matter of luck in most cases, like what you have said bounty value quickly dumped. You'll just see yourself holding coins without
any value working for such a long time with bounty works.
Escrow can guarantee the distribution but the value will depends from how the investors and traders will be interested to the project
without anything, the value will die along the way.
Be very careful joining with any bounty works. Focus with usages and good developers behind.