The properties of neutron-rich nuclei far from stability are different from what we would have guessed based on those of stable nuclei. The wide availability of beams of radioactive ions now allow us to probe many aspects of so-called exotic nuclei with reactions that transfer a few nucleons to or from a ``target'' far from stability. This is done, however, at the expense of performing the reaction with a heavy beam colliding with a light target (´inverse kinematics') and with beam intensities that are orders of magnitude smaller than those used by nuclear physicists for decades to understand more stable systems. Such reactions are particularly useful as they can be especially selective and data from different reactions can provide complementary information about the systems of interest. The technical difficulties can, in many instances, be overcome and in some cases more information can be obtained than in older, simpler measurements. I will discuss some recent examples of experiments on the neutron-rich boron nuclei 12,13,14B, studied with three different reactions: neutron-adding with the (d,p) reaction, and the proton and deuteron removing reactions (d,3,4He), in inverse kinematics. Each of these was studied with the HELIOS device at the ATLAS Facility at Argonne National Laboratory, a solenoidal charged-particle spectrometer designed specifically for reactions in inverse kinematics. I will also discuss possible future directions for this technical approach at other planned exotic-beam facilities.