Yes the weight on the bottom is the ticket. This "drop shot" technique is really a spin off of deep sea and beach casting techniques where you put a heavy sinker on the bottom to give you plenty of weight for casting long distances. Bass fishermen in deep lakes use it to get the bait down to the bottom and then they tie a hook up the line and fish plastics.

For bream, I like the fact that the bait always sits off the bottom and does not foul up in whatever the bottom is made up of whether hard or soft debris.

I have thought about some sort of slip set up for the hook so you can change depth fast, but I just opted for several hooks at say one foot intervals. You can also mix and match with a hook for bream and a hook higher up for crappie and a bait to match.