i works at microstakes, because the players are so bad, but i can assure you it stops working when you move up, mostly because limp-calling to set mine is extremely easy to exploit for competent villains using the technique i described above: raise light in position, cbet and get a fold 88% of the time, don't pay you implied odds the 12% of the time you hit your set.
Setmining requires good pot odds, but more importantly that the villain who raises has a strong range. Therefore, against positionally aware players, you can't set mine when they're raising in late positions.
i stated obv this is good for smallish stakes when someone is playing alot of tables
leatherass and others have made a science of getting rich set mining at micros
i wouldnt sit at one table (esp nl1000) and play the same way as 12 tabling nl50
edit: also agreed on a straight mathmatical approach when talking about 8.5:1 we need good pot odds to get our money in that pot, but again when setmining the goal is to stack someone with an overpair
this means that we arent simply figuring out whether it is mathmatically correct to call, in so much as we are figuring what his stack is if we do hit our set and he still thinks his overpair is the best hand
not stating (and in fact said the opposite), that this is good for a high buyin live game and/or tourney setting
this does work great at smallish stakes, where we are playing alot of tables and the odds of stacking a micro player are alot higher, since they cant seem to let go of kk,aa on a 10 high board