Gonna chime in with what I use and do. Not a pro, but it seems to be working for now as I mess around in my head with other possible options. I have a 6 or 7 gallon bucket I got from Northern Brewer in my starter kit, 2 actually. They both have a spigot that sits about 2 inches or so above the bottom of the bucket. I ferment in them with an airlock in the lid that has the hole drilled and a rubber bung for the airlock to push into. I ferment for anywhere between 2 to 4 weeks depending on if I am dry hopping and when the FG is stable. I have left the beer in the fermenter for longer as life happens, but that is my average so far. On keg day, I will fill my keg with a mixture of Starsan and 5 gallons of water. Roll the keg a bit to get the Starsan to touch all the parts of the inside of the keg. I have a floating dip tube that I use as well if that means anything. I then hook up my keg to my tap line and run the Starsan thru the line to make sure it get into anything the beer with touch collecting it out of the tap with a 5 gallon pot. I then leave the pressure on the keg, bring the bucket out to my garage and set it on the washing machine. I will run a sanitzed line from the spigot of the bucket to a QD and put it on the Liquid end of the keg. I then open the spigot, release the keg pressure and let gravity do it's thing. I am thinking of trying to do a keg fermentation and then doing a full pressure transfer from my ferm keg to my serving keg, but have not made that jump yet as I have about 12 kegs to rebuild and really give a good cleaning too. With that said, that is what I do and I have had pretty good results. If bottling, I set the bucket on the counter, open the door to the dishwasher and put the bottles on the door of the dishwasher so any spillage just sits on the door and not on my floor. Makes the wife much happier that way. LOL. You will get a bunch of different ways to do the same thing, these folks rock with info and ideas. Take what you are given and do what is best for you.
Long winded answer to say no, I don't use a secondary and most of what I have read says you don't have to. You will get some sediment in the beer as you transfer it, but I put the bucket where it is going to be a couple of hours before transfer and that seems to allow the crud to settle back down.