I have mixed feelings about outlines. It really depends on how many words I'm expecting a story to be. Anything that I'm expecting to be around 10,000 or less (and 10,000 is pushing it... more like 7500 or so) I just start with a story concept (It later gets turned into the reader's blurb about a story) and notes in blue about where I expect a scene is meant to go then I roughly fill in the blanks (I literally mean that as I leave about five lines between stories so that if I don't have my computer with me but my printed draft I can just free write and type it in later.)
For longer stories or story concepts ("For the Good of the Earth" in the non-LnC Superman story section comes to mind of stories that I have segments posted somewhere) I sit down and outline/"script-write" (meaning I just get the conversations down and basic direction meant to be re-written into a real story.)
I've had one or two stories morph from free-writing with direction/plot notes in text (usually written in blue so as not to distract while writing) into a story that really did need a separate outline. Usually I'll take what text I do have and create and outline of what I've already written (and what threads need to be fleshed out and resolved.)
With all of that said, I haven't written a story from beginning to finish that needed an outline... although I have a handful that are partially written that absolutely DO need the plotting. More often than not all of the stories that have an outline are not finished outlines OR stories.
