Recent advances in measuring various signals in nuclei far from the valley of stability have strengthened the quest for finding and understanding signatures of simple patterns in nuclei. Among the diverse available paths, we will focus on the exploitation various reactions, ranging from grazing collisions to fusion reactions, at energies around the Coulomb barrier. In this talk we discuss recent results obtained using high intensity stable beams in inverse kinematics combined with highly efficient detection systems comprising of the EXOGAM gamma array and VAMOS spectrometer at GANIL. An overview of the evolution of this program towards the characterization of neutron rich nuclei, will be presented. In particular the opening of new avenues and results from measurements of prompt -ray spectroscopy of isotopically identified fission fragments will be discussed. Status of the advances of the VAMOS spectrometer for exploiting beams from the present facility and SPIRAL2 will also be presented.