I'm pretty sure that the baseboards were original to the house and were pretty beat up. I was convinces they had to go... plus it helped with the floor refinishing process. I bought myself a pry bar and a good hammer and started at it. It was also good that I did this before I painted so I wouldn't mess up a new paint job. The quick and dirty description of how to remove a baseboard is: put edge of pry bar at the top of the baseboard, hammer pry bar behind baseboard, gently pry baseboard away from wall slightly (can be less than 1/2 inch), move pry bar further along the baseboard, and repeat until full baseboard is slightly away from wall, then work your way back to get it even further away from wall until you can pull whole thing out with out damaging the wall. If you try to remove the whole nail before prying the full baseboard slightly away from the wall, you risk damaging the wall behind it.
I ended up some nails left in the walls that I am having to remove now that I'm installing the new baseboards. Some of those need a little engineering ingenuity (in fact, I was told I should have been an engineer when someone saw my methods, but I'll stick with my current profession). Sometimes I've had to use a block for leverage with the hammer or pry bar (I'm pretty certain I learned that trick from Dad). I've also used interesting configurations of the hammer and pry bar to get nails out. Occasionally I've been able to use needle nose pliers to pull the nail out. If all else fails I hammer it all the way into the wall or saw it off with a small hacksaw right at the wall because it's just going to get covered by a new baseboard. I just have to be careful not to shoot a new nail into the old one. Before I install more baseboards, I'll make sure to survey old nail holes and will put a piece of painter's tape on the wall right above the nail to be careful around that spot. 
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