We found that if a Tech does not have permission to re-assign tickets to other techs they can work around this and do it anyway.
Tech click escalate but does not save ticket. Instead chooses a Tech from the drop down and then saves. This both escalates to the next group level but also assigns to the Tech they selected. We've had Level 1 Techs escalating to Level 2 but picking a Level 4 Tech from the drop down.
I'm making a rule to combat this behavior, but would like to see this get addressed as it defeats the purpose of denying them this power in the permissions!