With the current prices, is there even any point to hire somebody at an hourly rate? I see he is trying for the $5k bounty which makes sense - maybe its better for now that the delegate remains out.
A fixed-price project (like one with a bounty) usually comes with a higher price than a project paid with an hourly rate, because the developer carries the risk of miscalculation. So you get more dev power for an hourly rate.
At the current BTS price I'll happily take on bounty projects in addition to my delegate. However, there have been very few bounties offered in recent months, so it doesn't really make sense to maintain knowledge of the codebase for bounty projects alone. Again, a delegate job with regular pay makes more sense here, even if the payment is low at this time.