Interesting Book

I've been reading a book called entitled "Pound Foolish, Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry",by Helaine Olen, and thus far its been an entertaining read.  To date I've read about the interesting history of Suze Orman, Dave Ramsey, and others.  I'll share an excerpt from one of the next chapters:
"Here are two things you need to know about variable annuities.  First they are increasingly being marketed and sold to baby boomers who are more and more afraid of outliving their retirement savings.  Second, this is a product so complicated, so difficult to understand, with so many financial penalties should one decide it is not the right investment after all, that Suze Orman, a former annuities saleswoman herself, begs people to stay away from them."

While they may have their place in an investors portfolio, I would tend to agree with her.  They are vastly oversold with little attention paid to their long term costs.

If I were considering a variable annuity purchase, I would ask the following questions:
1) If I cash in my entire policy in 1,5,7, and 10 years, what would be the surrender charge I would pay?
2)  If I invest my money and the market goes down by 50%, and I surrender (cash in) my entire policy, what would I get?  My original investment or something less?
3) If I assume the prevailing investment return in the market will be 6% for the next 20 years, what would my policy be worth compared to a regular investment account that has lower fees. (For this one if they can't put in it numbers for you I would be very cautious- there expenses should include M&E expense and all the costs of any riders).