Even being in an escape aisle seat doesn't necessarily help. Flew to Canada a couple of years ago with my wife and we were allocated escape aisle seats (don't know why, must have been polite/smiled sweetly) even though we are average sort of heights (me 6ft, she 5ft 6). The third seat head been allocated to a 6ft 6 bloke who needed the extra legroom.
The problem was his seat was nearest the door and in front of it was the door sill sticking out (huge great thing, I assume it contains the emergency slide) so he actually didn't have any extra space. (After take-off my wife swapped seats with him since she was comfortable with the space and it gave her a window seat, so everyone ended up happy).