AK is a great hand to raise with preflop depending on position.. at the cutoff in a 9-handed tourney I may raise 4x just to trap players into calling, thinking I am just trying to steal blinds / ante, little did they know I have the Big Slick.
I agree that if a player has Aces or Kings obviously you are in trouble, but that isn't too likely since you hold the blocker cards.
A pocket pair that hits a set on the board or that you don't hit is a recipe for a bad beat story, and the only issue I have with shoving drastically pre-flop is that you have some commitment issues after seeing the board.