Could I have done anything differently

[RRRRICK]

100 player tournament. 1,500 starting chips blinds atart at 25/25 and go up every 20 minutes. It's clear after a couple of hands that I was sitting with a table full of beginers with 1 exception seated directly to my right. While the blinds were small I decided to play conservative and try to pick up some pots with some good starting hands and then increase my aggression when the blinds got to 50/100. I didn't pick up any decent hands in at level 1 or 2 and folded virtually everything. I'm at 1,300 at the same time the player to my right has made some good pots showing hands like AK,77,AQ and is up to about $4,000. My starting hands don't improve, junk,junk,junk hand after hand I eventually pick up A7 suited on the button and decide to raise to 300 with only one limper in the pot(I'm happy to pick up the blinds at this point). The blinds fold but the limper calls. The flop comes Q74 and i hit a nut flush draw. Limper bets 200, with roughly 5 -1 pot odds I call miss the turn, he bets 500 I fold. I'm now stort stacked pick up 88 and go all in and lose to A9. So in summary 88 was the only pair I picked up and A7 was my best ace. Everything else was garbage, but with such a weak table could I have done anything differently. Oh one more thing the player to my right came 5th.