Its true that this theory tries to find an optimal bet size. In my opinion, we don’t know anything about opponent’s hand. All we know is the probability of our hand making. We have to make a bet size based on that only. I don’t know how that goes.
There can be different way of finding the bet size : Take my case for example. I bet only one BB irrespective of the hand I hold. Be it AA or 27o. I believe in post flop. But faced with a big bet, I will call upto 5-6BB if I hold AA or KK. I will fold over that bet even I hold an AA. I will call 4BB for QQ, high card seq and suited (A10s). 3-4BB any card seq and suited. 2-3 any card seq or suited. 1-2 for any card. Assuming a good stack size of 50BB.
I do two things here. One I don’t look at the pot size. Betting based on expected return on pot value makes you an aggressive better while the probability of winning being the same. But I don’t demerit the advantage in this. Two I only see my stack size and the bet. Or I see how much of the stack I will lose in case I lose the hand. This is my way of playing, looking at others play I believe that’s what many do.
Putting these two, I get a constant mathematical ratio of 0.25. Having an AA with 40% probability, I am willing to bet 1/10th of my stack (0.1/0.4). With no hand which has say 10% probability I am risking say 1/40th of my stack (0.025/0.1). This ratio can be called risk factor. For a given percentage of probability of winning how much percentage of stack one is willing to risk. If you bet above this factor you may make someone to fold. This is different line of thinking but its prevalent, at least intuitively, as you have quoted in one of your messages:
I don’t know how much this is going to help, but my bit anyway.