Holy backspace, Brosz-man!
The first few times you described hitting the escape key, it seemed so prosaic I didn't pay it much attention. App dialog boxes routinely close when you press escape, and a description of something going away didn't seem that remarkable.
But the message form isn't a traditional dialog box, I just realized, and now I see the truly obnoxious way that the Escape key clears the message box. That is not right. It will be fixed no later than the next release of the software, if not sooner if I can slip it in as a minor patch.
Sorry about that. It's not your fingers.
--Robert