Learning from others mistakes - pot size bet on the turn?

I was playing online over the weekend and did well, particularly in one hand. I am not going to claim I played the hand well as I really just benefitted from fish play. Anytime I am in a fish hand though, I try to go back and analyze what the fish did so I don't duplicate their moves in the future.

Playing at a deep stack table with a maximum buy in of 200 times the blind, my stack on the button is about 150 times the big blind (300 chips), a very solid player in the small blind has about 220 times the big blind, and a new player at the table has about 100 times the big blind. Cash game 6 handed. I pick up snowman on the button. I make the standard pot raise, just short of 4 chips (4x the small blind). Small blind, who has been at the same table for about an hour calls. I consider him solid as he bluffs little and always seems to have it when he puts his chips in the middle. Big blind also calls. Dream flop of Ace, 8, 6 with 2 clubs. Small blind throws out a probe bet of 2 chips, big blind raises to 4 chips, I raise to 14 chips. I really don't want to lose anyone here so I throw out a bet that builds the pot and hopefully gets a couple callers. The 2 players oblige and call.

Next card is the 4 of diamonds. Innocuous card but it turns out to be a good card for me. Small blind now makes a pot size bet, about 56 chips, big blind thinks for a while and calls. I analyze the possibilities. The only real hand that is possibly beating me is AA, doubtful given that common poker theory wants isolation with AA, not likely given the preflop action. Also, none of the bets up to this point smell like AA. So I push my remaining chips into the middle, about 160 chips on top of the 56 chip bet. Small blind, seemingly a solid player based on table play thusfar calls as does big blind. Small blind shows AQos drawing dead, and big blind shows A4os for 2 pair. The river is a blank and I almost triple up.

Here is where I see the biggest error in the play of my opponents. The pot size bet on the turn by small blind. He has AQ and certainly is not going to get me off AK, my most likely hand given the play thus far. He would likely get me off a flush draw but I don't think a pot size bet is necessary here to get me off the flush draw, 2/3 to 3/4 of the pot with just one card to go is a better bet. I am just not a fan of defending top pair with a pot size bet on the turn. Sure the pot sized bets on the flop make plenty of sense. The pot size bet on the turn also makes my opponent feel committed to this pot. He then feels like he has to make a crying call when I shove. A smaller turn bet then gives him the option of either folding or saying looks like a semibluff I am going to call anyway. Finally, the pot size bet also let's me use the TJ Cloutier theory, when faced with a big bet, either fold or raise, calling is generally not an option. So I shoved, not the play my opponent wanted to see.

I have done the same move myself defending a baby flush on the turn with a pot sized bet. At least I was defending a flush, not just top pair. I eventually lost all of my chips to the nut flush. This is not to say that a pot sized bet on the turn is never appropriate, I just don't like it unless you are against a calling station or multiple draws of both flushes and straights.