[mntndrew]

You aren't putting enough weight into how much additional equity you win by outplaying them preflop, the easiest street of all.

Also, while it's true that bloated pots often make it correct to draw thinly postflop, this does not mean that you can't outplay them postflop. You can do that by betting for value more often than they would and by protecting your hand with raises that force them to draw unprofitably.

Your opponents' thin peels can be correct postflop because of preflop mistakes. But consider that in a 10 SB pot, you may have 40% equity while your 4 opponents have 20%, 20%, 10% and 10%. They may be correct to call a bet getting 10:1 and only being 4:1 or 9:1 dogs; that's fine, you still are putting in 20% of the money with 40% equity on that street.

Finally, the rake *is* big. But you're playing to make money from your opponents' mistakes; in blackjack, you can minimize the house advantage, but you can't (as far as I know) turn it in your favor.