Alternative to PayPal for Web Professionals - a quick survey

Hello folks,

Just wanted to fire some questions at the web designers, developers, illustrators, all web freelancers, to hear your thoughts on an issue which is rife at the moment.

Now, as a lot of you know, PayPal can be a nightmare to work with when it comes to working with clients through the dispute process, the fact that seller protection doesn't cover intangible goods and the fact that if a dispute does come up the PayPal team aren't the easiest people to work with. Yet PayPal is still the #1 choice for web professionals.

If you are involved in selling a service to clients and use PayPal or simmilar gateways for payment processing, please take a moment to give your answers to the following questions:

• If PayPal offered a more personal level of support to give unbiased, human perspective on disputes (such as a client asking for a refund on a deposit for reasons that aren't your making), would you use the service? And if so, how much more than the current 3.4% fee would you be willing to pay for such a service?
• What is your average project payout?
• If PayPal could operate on a basis more like escrow - where funds are provided by the client and held in safe hands until the end of the project when they are given to the freelancer as long as the work is proven to be done in line with the project brief - would you prefer to use a service like this? Would you pay a greater percentage fee than the 3.4% PayPal charge?
• What payment methods (other than credit / debit card) would you like to be able to accept digitally, if PayPal could offer them?

Any time you spend answering these questions would be of great help for a project working to provide you, web professionals, with a suitable alternative to PayPal.

Kind regards,