I think endowment mortgages come under the category of 'seemed like a good idea at the time', the time being when returns on stock market investments were generally much higher than they have been for the last 20 years.
We had a 15-year mortgage on our first house which we bought in 1970 for the princely sum of £1,750. The endowment payout did indeed repay the capital and provide a little windfall too.
However the 25-year mortgage we took out in 1985 with Standard Life did not meet expectations and produced only £19,000 of the expected £30,000 debt. We had plenty of warning from Standard Life that this would be the case and were in the fortunate position of having funds to cover this.
I don't feel that we were mis-sold this mortgage. Our attention was drawn to, and we read, the small print which clearly stated that the endowment might not be enough to pay off the debt.
But at the time this seemed highly unlikely. I do have sympathy with anyone who is in financial difficulty as a result of taking out an endowment mortgage, but I am not sure that all the companies which sold them were guilty of wilful greed. It was more a case of promoting a financial vehicle which hadn't been properly tested and caused a lot of misery when the wheels came off.