Villain is 17/11 over 40 hands and has a 100% fold to 3bet (3/3). So far he has been playing pretty weak/tight, but last hand he raised 36s preflop and showed it down so he might have decided to "switch gears." For what it's worth he's 4-tabling and has the silver VIP status.

I decided to check the turn because I didn't feel that he would call preflop with many aces and therefore would not call a turn bet with much that I beat. My plan was to call turn and c/f river thinking that he would never be bluffing both streets nor value betting worse. Given my reads on the player I feel I'm definitely beat when he raises the river, but by what? It seems like anything that would do this for value other than an 8 would have bet the turn on a board like this, but maybe he decided to check with a set or AJ for some nonsensical fish reason?

Thoughts on turn check?

Poker Stars $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

BB: $178.55
UTG: $119.50
CO: $100.20
BTN: $56.30
Hero (SB): $105.00

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is SB with Q A
UTG raises to $3, 2 folds, Hero raises to $9, 1 fold, UTG calls $6

Flop: ($19.00) J 7 A (2 players)
Hero bets $12, UTG calls $12

Turn: ($43.00) 8 (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG checks

River: ($43.00) 8 (2 players)
Hero bets $30, UTG raises to $98.50 all in, Hero folds

If you think that villain would not call your preflop 3bet with worse hands,
then don't 3bet AQ for value,intead just flat it preflop
to keep in dominated hands such as AJ, KQ
to make pot smaller.

As played, vilain would definetely 4bet with bigpocketpairs, but might flat with AK,AQ,AJ in position, most of part has you beaten. I put villain on such tight range because of his 17/11.

as you said he might have changed gears, and has much wider range now. Say he flats you with something like 99,TT, or KJ, you have him beaten now, but you can't expect to extract more than a single, if any, street of value from those hands, furthemore there is very few cards that can help him, so you doesn't afraid to give a free card on flop, and opportunity to fire disperation barrel or two.

That's why I like to check flop.
whereas with continution bet, worse hands fold but better hands calls

I call here

If villain wants to bluff us, why not to try it on turn when we check it to him?
why would villain decide to bluff us, when hero nearly pot commited himself, and gets generous 3 to 1 pot odds?
why would villain decide to bluff us, when our hand doesn't look weak?

Would villain decide to trap with worse hand such as AT, KK, QQ ?

Flat pre. As played bet turn . river is either a c/c or a c/f

you like to flat pre with this hand, that's you may admit that villain has very few worse hands in his range, most of them won't pay off much, if anything on Ace high board
so why do you like to make scary off those hands with double barreling?

Generally, I agree with you sviridenich about 3betting and whatnot, but I had been doing a lot of it (15% or so) so I did expect him to call me with a fair amount of worse hands although maybe I am overestimating how observant someone like villain is. On the flop I debated between check/bet/bet and bet/check/bet, but ended up deciding on the latter because I thought villain would call with some worse hands and I would rather not give hands a chance to draw out on me that wouldn't have continued otherwise. I also felt that I would get more value out of a jack (although he doesn't really have any in his range other than AJ so this is probably faulty reasoning) with bet/check/bet because check/bet/bet is almost always a relatively weak ace or QQ+ although villain might not be aware of that.

that's check on flop may look like weak ace ( how weak? thus villain may decide that his weaker ace is good here)
it may look like qq,kk ( again weak hand, weaker hand that you actually have, so it is good for you)
once you decide to give up on flop, you'd start with checking a flop.

that's when you check flop, you underrepresent you hand and villain may pay off with worse or fire some desperation bluff.
It seems to that you want to get no less than two streets of value with your non-premium kicker. Don't you consider check/check/bet , check/bet/check lines?