You can definitely rock a bold lip just as long as it's not too murky and dark, my lips are average size but dark reds/brown/purple can make them look mean.
There are plenty of ways to do bold lips though, colours like Impassioned, Russian Red, Show Orchid etc, they are bold and vivid but not too dark. Of course lipliner is your friend but most people use lipliner with bold lipstick anyways.
I think bold lipstick can sometimes look better on thin shapely lips, it gives a very sexy retro look
You just have to practice and master lipliner so that your top lip doesn't look overly drawn on but rather just emphasised. Since you are trying to balance the upper and lower lip, also make sure that you do not apply gloss to your lower lip as it will just make it look bigger in contrast to the top lip. HTH!