General question about preflop raising

[jeffnc]

I've tried various strategies wrt hands preflop and raising, limping or calling raises. Without getting into specifics about whether to limp, raise or call raises with AQ, I'm wondering about how good players might raise preflop for different reasons.

Specifically, in a full ring game with weak players such as casino $1/2 games, how do you respond to games where preflop raises are generally high? (5-15 BB?) How do you raise yourself if there are multiple limpers who will also call small raises? Who will also call large raises? How does this affect your pot control with different sorts of hands?

I'd like to know how small raises fit into a strategy against weaker players too. I'm talking about min-raising or raising 3x (where that would be a small raise) for the purpose of raising the stakes and making the game play a little bigger. Under what scenarios might you minraise or raise small to accomplish that? Or is that even worth accomplishing? (Again, since pot control can be difficult with multiple players in a hand.)