I like your thoughts here.  I think with SPR 1.5 I'd prefer a pot/call on this board with pretty much everything that I continue with.  Many players will stick it in here with just a naked J, but it's somewhat questionable if they're actually getting the right price when you have AA -- meaning you might have some fold equity with your other hands.  And when they have KK,QQ they're in a pretty tough spot.  Obviously, when the situation is reversed and you have your actual hand, you want max value against those hands.  

I think potting it here is the best way to get your opponent to potentially make some mistakes.  When you make it 40% pot you're basically allowing your opponent to play perfectly against you.  With SPR > 2 I think it's a different story against some opponents, then the smaller bet might have some merit.

What I'd wonder though is whether you have any give up range on this board.  I don't know what range you 4b, but I could potentially see giving up here with T987 type hands if you 4b those.

imo there's nothing wrong w betting ~35 with top and bottom of your range in this spot, and just potting the rest of your range that you're bet/getting it in with.

think i agree that alot of midstakes regs will make more mistakes vs psb here against your range

side Q: w pot at 108 and eff. stack at 162, what % does opp need to get it in here?

I have two thoughts.  First, I don't think a 1/3-pot bet in a 4-bet pot is likely to best-accomplish what you want (which I think is inducing a shove from KKxx or folding out weird 5678ds hands and weaker hands that would've folded to any size bet).  The only hands that shove are ones that are pretty bad or scary for you (JJxx, Ad with or without a second diamond), and the only hands that flat are ones that would happily call a 1/3-pot bet to see the turn (stuff like KK with diamonds or rundowns above or below the J and maybe with the J).

Also, if I'm villian and I think you're a good player, a teeny-tiny c-bet sets off red flags in my head, and you're going to have a tough time getting me to put money in bad.  I expect a c-bet of 75-100% pot with almost your entire range, mostly because that makes my decision more expensive.  And because I expect a large c-bet, you're probably *more* likely to get me to shove/continue with dominated hands with a large bet than you are with a tiny one.

Not sure if that makes sense.

I think it depends a little more on how likely you are to ever wanna b/f here, like adi says betting 1/3 with the best and worst hands and then potting everything else on what kind of a dry flop seems like a fine play to me. I find in general when people use this sizing they are very un-balanced and are usually just at the very very top of their range. If im your opponent in this hand vs generic players at 1/2 i'm expecting to see AA with diamonds most of the time vs a $38 bet. 

In a vacuum I think potting is almost always going to be better.

Bet big/get it in. He is getting WAY to good odds on this board. 

I don't think we wanna be overly worried about the odd's were laying him, we're defo going with this hand in one way or another we just want to manipulate his range to play as poorly as possible vs our range. People tend to veer towards this bet size with the super magnum hands (AA5* with diamonds etc) as an exploitative method of getting weaker hands to at least CALL one more bet. 

doing it with naked AA de-polarises your 1/3 pot range which is not a bad thing at all but I think maybe a little unnecessary plus I'd rather have AKJT to 38/call with then naked AA. Think if you do have a pot/call range (which you defo will/should have) then this hand should prolly be in it. Keep 38/call as a more polarised range.