No way I ever ever CB with 3 opponents out there if it missed me. That's spewage IMO. Depending on the opponents, even 2 can be too many to CB. If I have a crap hand but with a small chance to improve (like a weird gutshot), I'll definitely check behind against two opponents and hope to catch and stack somebody ... also if they check it to me again on the turn I know that I can take it down with a bet 90% of the time.

I think you're heading in the right direction here. When I'm playing FR games, I'm actually raising with a slightly wider (and different) range than this. I will sometimes just dump A2o-A8o, especially in the CO as opposed to OTB, because most of the hands that call me seem to be AT+ type hands that have me dominated. But I love to raise stuff like 86s 75s, even 75o and 54s/43s and the occasional T7s. I keep doing it over and over until they start playing back at me. That often takes a very, very long time. For most of my opponents at $50 NL and below, they're so clueless that when they get tired of my raises, they "counter" by calling my preflop raises with worse hands and then check/folding more flops because their crap holdings are missing the flops.

Good luck with this. Variance does increase, no doubt about it. But you get more action on your made hands, as even the slowest of your opponents will notice how often you raise PF and will not give you credit for a hand.