[deception5]

You can against a lot of players, especially if the board is coordinated. Against 1-2 players though you often have the best hand. Reads will obviously influence this a lot as will the texture of the board.

The other thing is to consider the effect this has on your big pocket pairs and your hands that do hit (ie if you bet when you have a hand, check/fold when you don't you are fairly easy to play against).

But it's certainly not manditory to raise preflop and follow up with a flop bet - sometimes the best play is to check/fold. "Middle Limit Hold'em" goes into great detail on this and the biggest factors it points out are the number of opponents and your position.