Just move towards the edge of the screen slower. The farther you move the cursor towards the edge of the window, the faster it will pan. To actually get this to work right, you have to move your mouse very slowly. There should and could be a command to change the sensitivity of this, but I'm not sure.

i often do not have the image's window maximised in photoshop, and this seems to make a difference. when i use a maximised image it has better control as you say.

when working on something that requires a lot of intricate selection (with laso, polygonal laso etc) I usually change the mouse sensitivity, as Chili mentioned.

I usually only use the lasso for rough selection. If I need to zoom in, I just skip the lasso and create a new path and use the pen tool to select. It has the added advantage of being easy to add and subtract from and reuseable if you need that selection path again. For even more intricate work, especially when I need to zoom in and touch up the selection, I convert that path to a layer mask and then paint in the selection.

Not exactly what you asked, but maybe useful if you don't want to put up with a finicky lasso.

when i am working in really close, i use the spacebar to pan. you can use this in the middle of any command (ie panning with the spacebar will not end or close your polygonal lasso)

tralala is right. The lasso is not really intended for intricate work... or its hell if you use it all the time. The pen tool generates selections that are infinitely editable. whichi is really good.

I recently discovered that the pan tool is the best way to aproach this, like bamboozled said, press the psacebar to pan and take it from there, it avoids the problem and allows you to work up close with a big zoom andin more detail.

spacebar pans in almost all adobe products

Spacebar.

thanks for all the tips!
using the spacebar while using the lasso is just the tip i was looking for - that helps alot.