Should I buy a home or should I save a big down payment 1st?

Hello.

In brief, I live in the los angeles county area right now with a decent salary as an engineer. I am currently 26 years old and I live at home with my mom and dad and live pretty much rent free.

My question is, should I consider buying a house in today's market (year 2010) or should I hold off as long as I can and save a big, big down payment in another two or three years in hopes of reducing the principal balance of the house I buy?

Or should I just drop a small down payment , say 12-15%, and finance the rest?

Please, I do not need comments like I should move out and rent on my own. My purpose of living at home is to save money in cash.

So bottom line is, should I continue to live at home with my parents and continue to save as much money as I can (rent-free) of course, and put that towards the down payment or would that not even matter at all 3-4 years down the line if I were to buy a home?

Please keep in mind, the home I would be buying will obviously be the 28/36% front-end/back-end ideals too. Etc.etc.

Some things that bother me are that:

1. rate of the dollar inflation is about 3-4% per year.
2. my savings interest rate is horrible at <1% now.