I think the major difference of general contact and contact pair is whether you need to automate contact definition as simulation. So I think we can choose either one except facing small slid problem. But any other factors we need to consider when we simulate contact?
You can use general contact for everything, in fact it is recommended to use it as much as you can as new algorithms are primarily developed for it. Also advanced features such as CEL, SPH and such only work with general contact.
In my experience it is better to use pairs mainly in 2 situations, one when there are only a few well defined contact areas, as it saves some calculation overhead. Second is for example if you have crudely modelled and meshed bolts in bolt holes, but in reality there is a clearance, but general contact would try to resolve it, and it can take longer to add the bolts as exclusions than to setup only those surfaces you want to use.
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