yeah I can kind of relate to what you are saying. I bought mine a couple months ago, and Escapes are really hot sellers and it can be hard to find one that is already built with the options and colours that one may want. Dealers really want to sell you an Escape that they have on their lot first. If not, then they have to find a Ford dealer that will trade them for something they have on their lot. The latter is not that easy as some Ford dealers don't get along with other Ford dealers, and often they don't want to trade certain vehicles. The salesmen try to steer you away from a factory order as it takes a couple months to get them in, and their paycheck doesn't improve until the vehicle leaves the lot.
My dealer also told me that they don't hold incentive programs on factory orders, which I thought was reallly screwed up. They said if I order a factory Escape today with 0% financing and the truck arrives in 8 weeks time and the incentive changes during that time that I don't get the incentive that was available at the time of the order. Even if I did all of the paper work , put money down on the vehicle the incentive could not be held and could likely change by the time the truck arrived. I thought that really sucked, but they said that is how Ford does it. I ended up buying an Escape that had a bit less options than I wanted but I'm still very happy with what we ordered because we got the exterior and interior colours that we wanted, and that was very important to us. I don't think holding out until 2010 will change things much, these truck are hot sellers for Ford and you are always at the mercy of what dealers have on their lots. You might want to check around with other dealers to see what they have on their lots. I know in my hometown my Ford dealer does not deal with the other two Ford dealers in the city for trades, but will deal with a Ford dealer about 100 kms outside of the city. They each have certain relations that they prefer to deal with. | 
