Certainly not the best trades on there - but this is more an issue of liquidity IMO - not many people using it. Of course that won't improve if people don't start using it - kinda a self-fullfilling prophecy.
I think you can consider that - at least for now - you are paying a premium for a private service.
There is an order book for each pair. So you can see what's going on. And post your trade offer.
It's all peer to peer and runs through Tor, so extremely private.
Coins are held in multisig wallet - I don't know the technical details here, so you'd have to dig that out yourself. But basically no third party holds the coin during the trade.