I can't help but think that betting small in spots like those is kind of pandering the villain's range. When we're playing on Level 2, the best exploitative strategy is to vbet small enough to where he feels like he can't fold his weak range and bluff big enough to where it's almost impossible for a Level 1 thinker to find a call. Once we get to the point to where villain is thinking about our range, then it's so much of a leveling war that betting small probably doesn't accomplish what we think it does anyway. Sure, he calls more when we bet smaller, but he's doing it for correct reasons (because he's getting good enough odds that he can't afford to fold too often), and we're making it easy for him to form a correct range.

I remember years ago watching a nutsinho video on DeucesCracked, and he talked about how he bets more when his range can contain lots of bluffs, which is enough of a mindfuck that I remembered it and had an involved conversation with yAAwn about it. It seemed to make sense that it's our strong, balanced ranges that tend to have bluffs, so it kinda made sense, even though it was a little counterintuitive and went against everything that anyone ever says when commenting on hand histories.

In the end, I don't know how much I apply this in practice, and I think all the advice I've ever gotten has won out over the seemingly more game theory solid approach, but it has always nagged me. I somewhat suspect it's part of the small stakes poker community's growing pains going from Level 2 exploitative play to more perfect strategies, but it's probably about that time to let people who know what they're talking about chime in.