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Have, had and have been

When you say "I went" it is like you are telling a story to your listener. You want them to go back in time to that point and follow your story from there. If you say "I have gone" then it is more formal, and you want the listener to stay in the current time of now and to view your "going" as a completed action in the past, but to view it from the present. This is not the story-telling mode.
"I have been" can be used as the first part of a verb phrase "I have been looking for you." "I have been swimming." It could also just refer to having been located somewhere "I have been in Spain." "I have been to the grocery store."

Tumpliner sums it pretty nicely. In addition to what he said, I was taught as a kid that the simple past is used when we specify a specific time or talk about a specific incident e.g.
I walked him home *yesterday*.
BUT
I have (finally) walked him home. (This means that when you walked him home was not important, what's important is that you finally walked him home, as opposed to NOT walking him home.)
BUT
I have walked him home for the past three years. (This is not a specific incident, but used to occur over a certain period.)

The progressive perfect present ('I have been') refers to an action/state that was ongoing over a period the past, that is, something you would describe with the progressive present were it occuring right now. There are many instances where the simple perfect present and the progressive perfect present are interchangeable.

In short, you can talk about the same event in different tenses; it all depends on how *you* want to represent it and what aspect of it you want your interlocutor to focus on.