I know of a few fishos who dont like to use floats for gurnard for the very reason Hangler specifies. There bottom snufflers. Seems to work for them.
Personally I'm always a bit nervous about the presence of crabs so tend to use small ones. I also use 8kg line and I'm starting to think about dropping to a lower weight and smaller sinkers and trying that just out of interest. I have noted that when the gurnard are biting a braid line sometimes totally outstrips nylon in a calm sea.
You cant really use those strategies in CHB as it really is a weedy hole with evil side currents at times so you need pretty strong line. But if I'm fishing further along the coast this weekend I'll probably give it a try. Cant do any harm.