Are reverse mortgages marketed too aggressively?

A piece in the Sunday New York Times looks at the soaring popularity of reverse mortgages:

As the United States has become an older nation, reverse mortgages have grown into a $20-billion-a-year industry, with elderly homeowners taking out more than 132,000 such loans in 2007, an increase of more than 270 percent from two years earlier. In surveys, many borrowers say reverse mortgages have improved their lives and provided money they needed for retirement.

But hundreds of people who have sought reverse mortgages - in lawsuits, surveys and conversations with elder-care advocates - have complained about high-pressure or unethical sales tactics they say steered them toward loans with very high fees.