[roundest]

I would call and lead with a potsized bet on most flops. Like you said, you don't want to bloat the pot OOP. With the shortstack being that short, villain should be hesitant to fight back on the flop unless he has a real hand. It will be much cheaper for you to find out where villain stands by just calling/betting flop rather than raising to say 750-900 and having to lead out on the flop with 1600-2000 chips already out there.