The tax treatment of pensions does make it a slam dunk to be honest. If you have capacity to save then that is the best return but it is tied up. Anything you do on your own bat outside a pension is after tax paid on your wages and then you paty tax on the returns. I would recomend to anyone that they pay as much in to there pension as they can.
I accept what you say is, I principle correct but I am old enough to remember Robert Maxwell stealing all the pension money from the Daily Mirror workers, recently I met a bloke who ran quite a large industrial company but crucially he did not own it. With two years to go before retirement he found the pension fund had been bled dry then throw in all the different scams you hear about and I would be worried. Finally and perhaps more importantly the Government have now loaded the responsibility onto employers regarding pensions, what training and advice have they been given regarding what to do with your money ?