My question is: how should we approach a flopped top/mid set and lower pair blockers, choosing between

-taking an aggressive option, going for FE and protection with a vulnerable hand and little playability on runouts

-taking a passive option, trying to protect Xing range and realizing equity

example: QT6, we have AQQT or TT96

Should we base our decision and 'protection needs' off of the board?

This question is more directed towards top/mid set with lower pair blockers, since mid/low set with higher pair blockers can be advantageous

bet large and try to get it in

Its shouldnt change the way you play your hand much initially. Matters more for combinatorics as the hand continues.

I think this depends a lot on the situation, factors like range v range concerns play into how likely your opponent would barrel, and how much value you gain (or not lose) by flatting vs fast playing, whether you can effectively bluff catch on the bad cards if you play fast or slow (in some situation, playing fast you can still just pot it in on some bad turns, but in other situations, it would narrow their range so much that you're going to get in poorly a lot and it's better to keep villain's range wide to bluff catch on turns).

Of course all this is affected by SPR too.

I do find these things quite interesting; maybe you can post some specific examples, because we won't find any really general rules of thumbs that are too useful I think.

Back when I was doing some solver work these blockers do serve to change your frequencies, not by much but not by a non-existent amount either.