Strategy stuff: weak aces shorthanded, out of position

I have been trying to refine my shorthanded play to turn more of my 3rd place finishes into 1st place finishes. There comes a point in any sit and go when you have around 15-21 bb and have to tread very carefully, often there will be 3 or 4 people left. I have traditionally played very passively at this stage and whenever I get a sniff of a hand it is always out of position, in the blinds. The question I have asked myself is this: is it right to check or call a raise with a weak ace in the small blind when you could raise or fold? The further sub question is: am I wasting the value of the hand by not three betting these hands if I just call? It seems like the hand should have some instrinsic value but you postion is poor and makes post flop play difficult. I have ran some scenarios based on three handed play (where I often crash out by the way) when you are dealt a weak ace in the small blind and face a min or standard raise from an active player (who has correctly widened their pre flop raising range). It seems as though with the increased blinds three betting preflop is too risky as you cannot afford to play a fattened pot after the flop. You could stop and go shove post flop but this will be into two players and is way too risky to be a play with positive expectation, especially since better aces often call this move down. You are therefore in a call or fold situation when facing a raise. Post flop if you call a raise, most of the time you miss the flop (surprise surprise) and are stranded three handed because the big blind will have trailed behind for the good pot odds. Some of the time you will hit your ace and you need to commit and bet hard for value, assuming that your hand is best. This is he only way this play can be profitable in the long term. Most of the time you look at a dryish flop and may be tempted to donk lead/bluff, but this is never profitable enough and essentially ruins your chances of checking down to the river with the best hand, which will happen some of the time. It is important to play straightforwardly at this point to get the value from the hand when you hit and to avoid all other plays. Once in a blue moon you can pick off dodgy river bluffs and beat a bluffed king/queen high hand. All of these scenarios are based on calling no more than a min raise preflop. If the button opens for a standard raise it is important to suck it up and fold the hand preflop. The pot will become too big post flop (compared to your stack) if you call a 2.5x+ raise and the number of times you can proceed with value bets post flop will not make up for the pre flop losses in calling the raise in the long term. It hurts to make this play, but the best overall response is to ignore the pretty ace and raise wider on the button, stealing more blinds with some junk hands and all your high card combos. So to answer the two questions I put to myself: it is right to call a minraise with a weak ace, but not a standard raise, and the value of the hand is based solely on the ace.Your position negates the value of the hand so do not reraise preflop and trap yourself, wait for the button to turn up the heat.