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Lem's first rule of writing is that you can do absolutely anything: just so long as you can do it well enough.
Some people really like present tense, saying it provides a sense of immediacy to a work. I understand what they're saying, but for me it's an artificial immediacy, and the artifice outweighs the immediacy.
Now there are books where it works (see rule one). Some authors can really pull it off and I salute them.
I'll admit that if I find I'm really noticing the tense I will drop a book and it happens more often in present tense than in past. However, the real reason I drop it is not so much that it's in present tense, even though that's the trigger, but that the writer has lost me to the point that I'm focusing on how they're saying things rather than what they're saying.
When I read for pleasure I want to read a story, not a tense or technique. I avoid present tense because it's more likely to turn off the reader and turn on the editor, and that turns my pleasure reading into work. I edit for a living, that's the last thing I want to do for pleasure.
If you're good enough that the editor never comes out, I'll happily read present tense. You just have to be good enough to do that - and I find that present tense seems to be harder to write well, so it's more likely that a present tense story will find something to feed the editor.
Do what works best for you and the story you're telling. If you can tell the story well enough, nothing else matters.
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