[charlin]

My opinion on hand one is to at least limp and maybe even call a SMALL raise especially if there are a lot of callers. Medium pairs, i believe are great trapping hands if you hit the set. Which btw is all you are looking for. If you don't FLOP the set then your first and only move is to fold. A medium set is one of the hardest hands to put a player on, espesially if your big stack opponents are dead set on knocking you out.

Hand two sounds like you got a little tired of getting pushed around. STAY cool and calm, surely you can get a little better hand than QT to move all in on. Make them draw out on you!