Folding the nut flush on a paired board

[The Ram]

Having played a lot of NL on nothing more than feel and general card sense, getting real analysis like this is really helpful, so thanks. A few questions for the masses then (again this was my hand, even though The Bear was the on to post).
Guy Sucker, I'm going to be quoting you here:

"I don't like the preflop raise. ATs isn't much of a hand."

Not arguing this point, but I'm curious. I obviously understand that I could get called while holding ATs, hit an ace and get called down by a better one. So, how good to I need to be to be raising a suited ace? AKs is a no-brainer, and I'd assume the same w/ AQs. AJs???

"On the flop our hero has middle pair, top kicker and the nut flush draw. This is a very big flop and one worth betting. If you get raised a decent amount, you can choose happily between moving all-in or calling. Either is good with at least 8 outs and perhaps as many as 14."

This is a play I've never before considered, as I don't yet feel quite confident enough to be throwing my stack around in a Brunson-eque manner. If we were talking top pair and there were no such easily visible straight possibilities present, I would certainly be playing back, but betting out here and then shoving in makes me uncomfortable. Is this too conservative/weak-tight of me?

"So here's the turn and you have the nuts. Great. If you think he has a set, make him pay to hit it for goodness' sake. If you don't think that, then sell it for as much as you can and don't fold on the river."

In retrospect, I agree with all of this. However, all I felt fairly certain of is that he had a very big hand that I had just caught up on. In actuality, he had AA, so I wasn't far off. However, in the heat of battle I got a bit confused and then thrown way off when I turned the big daddy nuts. I thought about a more significant raise on the turn, but then considered that he might also have hands like red ak, or perhaps black qq--that is, he might call a small raise where a big one would make him fold.
Is there some trick to this? I've watched the FossilMan play live, and I've deemed that a reason for his big success is his consistent willingness to run people over with his stack. So, am I again just to much of a wuss?

Any thoughts would be much appreciated. I'm playing a pretty fair split of limit and NL/PL, but limit is just a technical game and easy enough to pick up (at least to the point of minor profitability), but any help on the NL/PL side would be quite helpful and useful.

Thanks.