GMs playing Characters

There is a stigma against a GM playing as a Character in their own game. Especially if they want to play -while- GMing.
Common things said are they can't stay objective, that they will use knowledge that no one but the GM knows, that it will slow the GM down having to both GM and play, and the list goes on for nigh forever.

I'm a GM that calls BS. Most of the time.

I am, and know, quite a few GMs that can keep GM and Character two separate things, don't slow down play and do not give themselves the main role in the game.

I also know quite a few GMs that can't stop from doing the above even just being the GM, forget it if they want to play a character.

For about 3 months I GM/played in a World of Warcraft tabletop game (Great game btw, uses DnD 3.5 rules and fits WoW play decent enough) and never had an issue keeping my "team" as normal characters. My players also said I did a great job keeping things separate and the game moving smoothly. I say Team above because I actually was playing as 4 different characters, depending on where my players were in the world would decide who I played as from Troll Warrior/Rogue, Human Wizard/Warlock, Dwarf Tinker or Human Tinker/Warrior.

Flip side. I played in a game where the GM decided to also play as a character while GMing, and took 15 minutes not only to decide when any player did anything, but took the same amount of time when his character did something. Very unorganized. The largest example I have of this is a 7 hour (without breaks) boss fight. At the end of said boss fight not a single person was happy with the game and about half the players left (stating that session 'as the last straw') I really feel for that GM and wish him luck in getting better organized. He had great ideas, just couldn't pull them together.

So what type of GM are ye?
Would ye keep your cool/morals and play fair if GMing and Playing or would ye be better off just sticking to GMing only?

RE: RL

Sometimes a game just doesn't go as planned.
Jono's GM Rules #3.

Last week on the 4th, I was having the first 'official' session/mission of Demon-World. And only one player shows up. *insert sigh #5, the 'This can't be a good sign' sigh*
I'm able to get two other players to hop in who happen to be online at the time and we get started (only one of who had signed up, but hey we're still able to do a mission right?)
About 5 minutes into it one of my players let us know that they are basically dead on the keyboard right now and super tired. It's cool, two person session I've done before. I just need to tweet the bosses to make sure they don't run over the two folks still in it.
About halfway through the session the other player that wasn't signed up for this session tells us that a buddy was in a wreck and they need to run to the hospital because the buddy listed them as the person to call if something bad happens.

As rule #3 states above, "Sometimes a game just doesn't go as planned."

We scrapped the first session for the moment and rescheduled it to next Thursday (A week after it was supposed to be), giving priority to the two that were able to make it through half the session as that way I can just continue from where we left off and not start all over with my players knowing what is going to happen for half the session heh.
Biggest thing a GM needs to learn is not to get mad or upset when these things happen. Real Life should always take precedence over the game.

The fine art of balance.

This is something that I used to get caught up in many times. Balancing the real world with play world, and within that play world, balancing your time and player time, balancing each character's 'shining' time with normal time with 'not-so-shiny' time (as in when they are the star of the show, a player in the show, or not that big a part at the moment).
Being a GM is very much about balance.
Putting it into real world examples: a few days ago I was juggling spending time with my almost 5 month old son, eating, and trying to get some things done with Demon-World (I'm gonna abbreviate that to just DW from now on heh). Needless to say, I spent most of the time with the kiddo as he had just woke from a nap and was needing some attention and play. I was able to get about 25% of what I set out to do that day with DW complete, aye I was a wee bit ticked that I didn't get more done, but I was happy to have some things I moved forward. And I worked just a wee bit harder the next day and made (mostly) up for it. Ah speaking of... need to put up the stuff that Trey helped me out with... I was rearranging it so it looked a bit more easy for me to read.
There is also something about balance when ye are planning on being both a GM and a player (I'm planning on for DW to become a multiple GM endeavor around Mission 30-ish and making myself a character to play in it when other GMs are running a session.) As a GM, especially the Head GM, ye need to balance what ye know of your world and what your character would know and would do. I've honestly seen more GMs slip up on this rule then just about any other... It's not fun, it leads to parties going "Ok, just follow the GM-Pet, they know where to go...".
Good planning and great balance can lead to a very happy RolePlayer and a very happy game.