The issue of a lack of commonly-accepted translation is a vexing one. I recently read and very much enjoyed the new Holman Christian Bible New Testament, which has many fresh and more accurate renderings, but some puzzling practices as well (for no apparent reason, the Greek Christos is sometimes "Christ," sometimes "Messiah").
Joel Belz of the wonderful WORLD magazine suggested months ago that the then-future English Standard Bible might become the Bible used by Christians. I bought it as soon as it came out, and am generally very enthusiastic and hopeful about it. (See his article here, and our discussion board where a thread was started titled "New Bible Translation: check it out!" here.)
Dan