Tournament Advice Please

[TheMrLegendary]

Hello everyone, I hope I can get some help on my question.

Overall I feel confident and really good about my skill level and success
in poker except for one area I just cant seem to master. I feel really
good in tournaments, sit and go tournys have been my bread and butter
games for a while now, and I always enjoy venturing into multi-table
tournys on poker stars. NLHE tournys with several hundred people are where
the big bucks are, so I really want to take my skills in SNGs and move up
to the big ones. This week I played in 2 small buy in NLHE tournys with
more than 1000 people in one and just over 1500 in another. I managed to
finish 101 in the 1000 person tourny and 122 in the 1500 person tourny. I
never made any huge mistakes and rarely made all in moves, but I never got
a huge stack like many other players, I really thought on this for a while
and several things came to me. Top players seem to final table alot, and
that takes certain skills I may just be learning. I have tried building a
big stack and something always runs into my way, for example the 1500
person tourny I have AQ in early position i raise and get 2 callers the
flop AA7, I bet the size of the pot and get 1 caller the turn 4 and then
an 9. Someone takes me down with A4 I shruge this off but I cant seem to
build a stack thats huge like most players who are the leaders. At PS's
you start with 1500 in chips and I can build to 10,000 and survive a good
80-85% of the field but I cant seem to really match with the final 10%.

I am just asking you guys and gals, any tips on building a big stack in a
big tourny, or a way to take enough pots to build up something reasonable
or even some advice into building as the blinds go up. Id put off the
success of players as a good rush of cards, thats why you have like 5-10
players in the 1000 who have 3-4 times anyone else, this is why no one who
ever lead on the first day of the WSOP ever won. Though I can imagine
Hellmuth, Hansen and Lederer see card rushes every tourny and make the
final table because of it. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Drew!