Point Of View

How do you decide on what point of view to write in?  Do you wish the intimacy of a first person narrative or the objectivity of a third person voice that is neutral and all knowing?  With newer writers it is often easier to write in the first person, but it does, at the very least, hamper the ability for a main character description.  First person descriptions of the main character can especially seem forced and egotistical if not handled well.  Sometimes there's hardly any practical way for some self-descriptions to come out of the mouth of that character that doesn't make it sound out of place.  On the plus side, first person narration gives you a unique opportunity to carry on inner dialogues in the mind of that character that can be quite entertaining and not easily carried out by an omniscient narrator.  How have you handled these kinds of choices in your writing?  What kinds of problems have you encountered and how did you solve them? .