I was thinking about Ne vs. Ni the other day and I think I came to this conclusion: If you drew a circle and the stuff inside the circle represented "everything" - as it pertains to a given situation (whether it be a puzzle or something else), then Ne want to consider the whole entire circle and everything in it. It wants to leave no leaf unturned. If it moves forward on a project knowing that it hasn't investigated everything in the circle, then it feels incomplete or like it is moving forward without gathering full information.
Ni seems to pick a slice of the circle that it is most interested in (a slice of the pie so to speak) and then navigate its way through that one slice. Ni navigates its way through its chosen field or its chosen endeavor very well.
An example would be all the threads you see on this board and INTPc where INTP's are constantly asking "what career field would make an INTP happy?", "I just can't seem to find the right career", etc, etc. INTJ's could moan and complain the same way we do, but they usually don't. They just pick a career and they go for it. And it may not be a "perfect fit", but they navigate through it as best they know how. INTP's are constantly thinking, "there's something else out there that would be better", there has to be another career field in the "circle of possibilities" that I haven't come across yet that will be more fulfilling.
When I debate with Ni users (INTJ/ENTJ), what seems to happen is that they are better than me at navigating *the specific topic that we are talking about*. They can kind of corner me a little bit or "trap me" (within the debate, that is), because their focus is more concentrated on the sliver of pie that we are talking about at that moment. They are the only types that can really seemingly "corner me" within the confines of a debate. But, the cornering is only momentarily, because Ne (seeing the whole circle at all times) is able to hop around and it always finds a way out, even if it has to resort to a bit of "escapism". In other words, if the Ni user traps me, I can move outside of the sliver of pie that we are talking about, and talk about things in a broader sense. I can always find a way to wiggle out because I'm seeing the whole picture at all times.
The other day I was talking to an Ni user (hard core republican) who was making some pretty interesting arguments in regards to the "negative side" of having a lot of immigrants in this country. He was kind of "pinning me down" and making it very hard to argue against him. First, he is extremely knowledgeable on current events and laws that are being considered and proposed and, second, he uses good logic to make his points known. I'm not necessarily one side or the other of this debate (to any large extent, anyway), but feeling pinned down and not really having much of a retort, I just simply played devil's advocate and said, "You do realize that your ancestors were once immigrants to this country, right? That they came over here and forced the native people to be obedient to them and basically said, 'this is the way we're doing it from now on'. So, just keep that in mind. The immigrants that are here now could very easily have been your great-grandfather and they are certainly someone else's great-grandfather. Just try to keep the whole picture in mind."
I didn't really have answer for his specific argument - I couldn't really match his knowledge on the topic, but I can see for absolute certain when someone isn't considering "the whole entire circle". Within that slice of pie (the topic of immigration in today's society), he navigated very well, but I was still able to point out flaws and/or hypocrisy in his overall viewpoint because I'm constantly scanning for "all information that could possibly be considered".