But what exactly is the "driver's seat?" If I do win the hand, my reward is substantially increased, and if I lose, maybe I am still in the drivers seat? I was hoping there is a more objective way to look at this situation, like how pot-odds in ring can dictate a call or fold decision.

Maybe I can look at as if my call with bad odds ends up putting me close to a 2 or 3 place stack, it's a fold, but if I can call and at worse still end substantially higher than the 2nd stack, it's a call.

Arg that doesn't seem totally right either since the odds are, like jackvance wrote, I probably can find a spot with higher odds...ok I gotta stop thinking about it, maybe just be happy that like everything else, the answer is "it depends on a ton of stuff"