Mind you, the reaction to drinking the sediment varies from person to person. Not everyone gets massive flatulence (I never have, at least), but many do. Some get the runs, too, while a few get a mild allergy-like reaction to it as well (like minor flushing and itching, nothing very serious), though those who get that will usually have it drinking homebrew even if they don't down the sediment, from the suspended yeast in the beer proper.
OTOH, yeast sediment is rich in B-Complex vitamins, especially B-12, which is a nice balancing act - as I understand it, when the liver converts alcohol to sugar, it uses up B-12, so drinking the sediment actually helps stave off hangovers a bit (for some people, anyway, just as long as you also drink plenty of water). Since I don't get the nuclear farts problem, I usually will pour a bottle into a glass clear, then drink the dregs from the bottle. The taste of the yeast isn't exactly thrilling, but it's better than dumping it IMHO.
Unless you have the money and space for kegging, bottling isn't so bad, and it doesn't take much practice to get it to where you can consistently decant the clear beer off without disturbing the sediment. As a first time brewer, bottling is actually simpler, though almost every homebrewer eventually gets tired of cleaning and filling bottles and will want to find a way to squeeze kegs into their system - and conversely, even keggers will usually want to bottle a portion of the brews from out of the keg, so they can take them to competitions and so forth. Both bottles and kegs have their place.