[citanul]

with a crowd that large, i'd have led the flop, since as doyle says, leading out with a set gives you the best chances to get all in on the flop with the likely best hand.

with the ace coming on the turn first to act, having led the flop, leading the turn again is nice, as someone who called you with an ace on the flop will often raise you here. checkraising becomes less viable as you move up in stakes i find. and, someone without an ace will sometimes (rarely i guess) bluff raise you here.

having not led, it gets trickier, because you betting out suddently looks like you were trying to catch the ace, and did. i'd probably still lead out anyway, the pot is still small, and your job is thus to make it big, so that when you win it, you'll be happier than if it was small.

citanul