We are not saving for college, but plan to help fairly aggressively, especially because our kids are in a bad situation due to our lifestyle -- we don't have a residence where they can live for free and go to college, nor can they live at home with mom and dad after school at all. (We live and work abroad and so there are visa issues.)
Right now, looking at what is seen as 'assets' which will increase our expected family contribution and what isn't, it makes more sense to me to turbo-charge my retirement savings so that when the kids are in college I can throttle back contributions and put that cash toward their tuition. I don't like the idea of 529 accounts, because they count against aid for many of the small, well-endowed middle-of-the-road private schools that would be the best bets for our kids.
I also feel like telling Junior that he has XX thousand dollars in his college fund leads teens to think "Okay, great! That's what I have to spend!" which isn't how I want to go into the college choice conversation. I'd like to push my kids to make the same kind of value-based judgement I did, and I worry that saying "Okay, spend XXXXX!" clouds that. We're fighting tooth and nail to maintain our Minnesota residency to stay in the midwest compact (I think about that every time I write my state tax checks...), expect them to think globally about their college choices, and are already talking about value, grades, and choosing 'marketable' extracurriculars. (Eldest is taking up fencing, because yay, little-known olympic sport!), all of which focus on making decisions based on value, not cost. We'll see how it all shakes out in 8 years or so!