Well, I don't know what you've read so I can't advise to that. If the beer has stopped falling in gravity (you are doing gravity readings, right?) for 2-3 days in a row, the main part of the fermentation is done. It won't hurt the beer to allow it to "rest" for another week after that sitting on the yeast cake at the bottom. This rest period allows the yeast to fall out and clean up early precursor alcohols, fusels and diacetyl. It just makes for a better beer to be patient and let it sit.
If it's bottling time, just rack the beer out of your carboy with a racking cane and/or an auto-siphon. Sediment on the top of the beer is usually just a yeast mat or krausen left over from fermentation. Just rack from the fluid underneath it and you'll be fine. Nothing bad can live in beer, that's why it's been safer to drink than water and mankind's beverage of choice for centuries.
Use the Mr. Malty priming sugar calculator (google it) and use it to determine the amount of priming sugar you need to add to your bottling bucket. It's easy to take a few cups of water, boil it in a small sauce pan, add the priming sugar and stir until dissolved. Once it comes back to a boil, it's sanitized and ready to pour into the bottom of your bottling bucket. Then, just rack the beer ontop and you'll have a nice even amount of priming sugar mixed into the entire batch. Perfect for keg carbonation or individual bottling.
