A friend of ours ran swathers and combines in the NW fescue when in college.   I almost didn't believe it when I was told they swathed seed with auger heads.  That would be an excercise in futility in our fescue here....there wouldn't be any seed to pick up, it would all be on the ground underneath the windrow.  Here the main reasons to swath are to be able to harvest dry seed and to get more yield.  Direct cutting produces about  30% shatter loss and 19% moisture is good direct cutting.  That means poke every lb out of the combine hopper with a stick.  Swathed seed is dry and runs out like water.  Swathing here is done with 20' 290 Deeres by the low budget guys and those like us who don't do a whole lot.  The professional fescue guys have 30' or 35' Macdons.  The pull swathers in fescue here are almost always more valuable then the combines following them.

Your fescue looks pretty impressive.  What sort of yield was the field in the picture?