Cimorene

i definitely agree with grace. there are isolated circumstances where epithets are unobjectionable and there are a narrower set of circumstances where it's a debatable stylistic choice (such as "his lover", provided the person in question IS his lover; or even, much as i despise it, occasionally things like "the blonde"; even if the pov character wouldn't think of them that way, there are people who like to jump pov in their narration, and if they want to do that as a rule there's nothing you can do). however, as a general rule pov jumping is bad because it takes you out of the story, and as grace points out, it's a stylistic choice that's widely regarded as bad.

and then, there's this: in the vast majority of epithet cases - all the ones mentioned above, for instance - it really is just a matter of bad writing. there will never be a time when sticking such a long descriptor as "the redheaded acrobatic tennis player with the permanent bandage as a facial accessory" or "the cashier of the novelty christmas store" or "the bandana-clad teen" into the middle of a sentence is acceptable. it wouldn't matter what the phrase was; it makes the sentence gratingly clunky.