I like pine in the warmer months. The smoke is brutal - but the skeeters think so too. In the colder months I like old, heavy oak - that stuff will burn forvever. I do like a small fire. Ever since reading Camping and Woodcraft by Horace Kephart, many years ago I began to understand his description of the difference between a 'white mans fire and an indian fire'. He said that a white man would build a big huge fire that was too hot to sit beside and an indian would build a small fire.
I remember that quote when I am out with someone that spends hours collecting all the wood they can and then piles it high so that the fire can be seen from space. I always feel sorry for the next person to try and find wood at that site.
But, to each his own.