Lately I've been working a lot on opening up in CO and BU trying to abuse my position on other players.

Something I've been toying with lately is raising 3x in the button instead of the "standard" 4x. I've thought of a couple reasons this might be good.

1) Because I'm betting so often (and obv often with mediocre hands) I expect to get looked up a little more often, so I'm risking a little less each time I'm hoping to take down the blinds, which leads to...

2) So far people who fold to steals for 4x seem to fold just about as often to 3x, again making my steals less risky and building smaller pots when called with weakish hands.

3) It seems that betting a little smaller should encourage people to play against me in raised pots while oop a little more.

My problem is that these seem to conflict with each other. They can't fold to steals as often while still playing me oop more often.

Or is this all something that will have pretty close to the same EV and really isn't worth worrying about?

Also, I'm still raising 4x in CO without a nit behind me.

I guess I'm not really sure what my question is. I'm really looking more for a little discussion, or again to know if it's not worth the time to bother thinking about this.

fwiw, I'm playing 50nl right now, but generally considering how this plays from 25nl-100nl.