I am still fairly new to DNMs and would rather be safe than sorry. My vendor said he had to switch into 'holiday mode' to be able to process all his orders. With it, he suddenly stopped offering escrow support und changed all his listings to FE only. I have successfully ordered from him twice, both times in escrow though. He offers good weed for a reasonable price (actually cheaper than most, if not all, other vendors in my country) and I would hate to have to search for a new one.
Is the FE move permanent? Did he say he would take escrow again? A vendor I use will do that when his escrow balance becomes too high - risk mitigation. Except he takes down all his listings when that happens. He'd go into vacation mode a few days, let people finalize and get his escrow balance down and then escrow was back.