Making the Pot Bigger vs. Keeping it Small?

[Max Weinberg]

I've been thinking about this one lately. Ok, you pick up some premium hand in the blinds and the table has limped to you, yadda yadda. You either raise and give everyone odds to call to make whatever crap they're holding, or you just check your option and make moves when you know that they're making mistakes when they call. Chicken or the egg stuff.

The question is, even if you raise and give them correct odds to draw, does that somehow offset your status as a 4:1 favorite (I'm just making it 4:1 for the sake of argument, I'm not going to use actual hands).

You made the pot large enough that they are correct to call all kinds of hands, but aren't you more correct to be raking in that money as a 4:1 favorite? Their being correct in calling a gut-shot on the flop doesn't detract from your EV on the hand does it? He's making a call that makes him money in the long-run, but it's also making you money - you're the favorite. Maybe I'm just misunderstanding this theory from HPFAP and someone can point out where I'm wrong.

If my goal was to systematically bust every player on the face of the earth, keeping the pot small to screw with their odds would be my weapon of choice. But in a pure cash sense, raise it up, right?