I don't think that the long neck works well for much of the tradition clawhammer styles like Round Peak or other traditional complex patterns.

I like it the way Pete used to do it with an index finger pick with the flat end
facing upward and the two middle and ring picks facing downward. This makes it awkward to play Scruggs style but if the downward picks are tall enough so they don't slip off the fingers while playing, you can master this style to some extent.
Also, he doesn't use a thumb pick and I think his style balances the sound of the strings better without it.

The reason for the added frets playing lower is to approximate the accompanying sound in the register of the guitar and this is what Pete did, use the bass lines and counter lines in an accompaniment as a guitar would.

Peggy Seeger recently did a workshop at the Old Town School of Folk Music
explaining the guitar-like usage of the banjo.

This style of Pete's was what attracted me to the five-string in the first place,
especially when I heard Pete for the first time at the home of Will Geer in Santa Moncia in the 1950's. Pete's playing blew me away. Ever since then, I've been a Pete Seeger acolyte on the five-string.