I play mostly in third, but I like having the option to use first-person for examining things up close. I like being able to see my character in the world to get a better of sense of physicality - first-person always feels unnatural to me (I get why people prefer it but to me it feels like my character has tunnel vision and walks around with their hands held in uncomfortable positions.)

I have seen first-person games that put your feet in the game, I think even back around 2000-2001 or so there was a Jurassic Park game that modeled your entire character's body, so when you looked down you saw your torso, etc. Technology-wise there's no major hurdles to doing that in a game and as far as resources it's just one more character model so nothing terribly drastic there. My own 3D training is about a decade out of date (and I wasn't very good at it anyway - it was part of my minor, though,) but I can take a couple of "educated guesses" as to why you don't usually see your feet/body in first-person games.

For starters there's some gameplay considerations. In practice, if you're looking at the ground it's because there's something down there you want to look at - this can be problematic if your feet get in the way of your view.

I have seen games that render your character's body and place the camera in the head, but this leads to issues too (not insurmountable difficulty, but time consuming and tedious, surely.) For one, players have a sense now of how things "should" look in a first-person game, and that doesn't correlate with real human posture. You have to animate the body so your hands are always held at about shoulder height, for instance. You also need to make some tweaks to FOV and rendering so things don't look out of proportion that close to the camera. To really do it "correctly" and have it animate so that it looks naturally you'd actually have to build out a character model that's somewhat out of proportion.

Of course in first-person games you're really just seeing a model of the player's forearm that "floats" just under the camera; when you look down and see feet you're really looking at two models of disembodied feet. Makes things a lot easier to animate and render. The reason you don't see it very often is likely because most devs just don't feel it's worth the effort I'd imagine. There's no technological reason it can't be done every time, but it would take extra effort to make it look "right" and not be a potential annoyance in game-play ("I really want to look at this thing on the ground, but I can't because my feet get in the way.")

I look at my character from time to time but otherwise it's first person.

Both, 1st person for combat, 3rd for exploring and conversations.

3rd because Melee.

Though I will play Bi in my ranged, male protag game. Probably my 3rd or 4th playthrough.

I prefer first-person when fighting and I am too lazy to change it after every battle, so I just stay first-person the entire game.

Primarily first person, because previously in FO3/NV the third person view was way too close and the animations too akward that I found it impossible to use.

Skyrim improved the third person view, and it greatly aided my stealth/thief career. So I'm looking forward to see how it feels this time around.

Even with zooming out?

1st Person to fight and examine things.
3rd Person when traveling or ogling character (also I use 3rd person to peek my head around walls when under fire.)

Even with because I'd have to zoom back in to pick up anything without wrestling with the controls.

I switch between 1st and 3rd quite a bit depending on the situation. If I'm outside just wandering the wastes I usually keep it in 3rd person. Sneaking around - 3rd person. I'f I'm inside a building I'll switch to 1st person because the close quarters combat, and checking out different items is just easier in 1st person.

I'm a bi-person.. I usually run about in third person (so's I can look at my pretty self) and battle in first person.

First person if I can use VR with it (and Fallout 4 is the kind of game I dream to play in VR), or third person if I can't.

First Person view ftw!

First person nearly all the time, third person if I'm trecking across the wasteland with nothing to do but watch my character run.

Third for the entire game for me if I can and it's well-optimized. I just hope they put care into its development, otherwise I'll have to skip.

this. Aside checking armor and guns, I switch to third person when I'm walking for nothing, just to rotate the camera around my character and see if my companion is following me.

99% 3rd person. At least once 7Base and skimpy BBP armor mods arrive. No sense in hiding all the candy...

I usually only use third-person to check out any new gear my character has equipped, to (try to) look around a corner if playing a stealthy sort, or to check out different scenic views from my current location. Pretty much everything else is done in first-person, since that's how my character sees things.

About the only exception is if I'm looking for loot after a fight involving explosives, since third-person panning is the only way to see stuff that has been blasted into (or through) a static of some sort.

I definitely prefer 1st person during combat.

This post reminds me of Duke Nukem 3D and the comments mr Nukem makes when pushing Spacebar in front of a mirror