Murky, my feijos have set a few flowers, here's how mine looks like now.
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Bass

Great, thank you! Now someone please point out the smallest flower bud you see! My new growth is just peeking out of last years stems, they aren't nearly as far along as the obvious flower buds in this picture that have several inches of this seasons growth.

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I'm more wondering if it is possible to tell from the first centimeter or so of this season's growth whether it will result in forming a flower this year on the new growth.

In other words, what did the stems that now sport the "obvious flower buds" look like days/weeks ago when they were only a centimeter long? Were they distinguishable from the stems that won't get a flower?

Few older plants I know up here never have a quantity of flowers, that I've noticed.

bboy,

I read that as a double-negative. I'm trying to understand what you are saying. Is it:

A) Almost all older plants that you know up here at least sometimes have a quantity of flowers that you have noticed.

B) You know a few older plants that never have a quantity of flowers up here, at least that you have noticed.

C) You meant "ever" instead of "never". In other words, from what you've noticed, having a quantity of flowers on an older plant "up here" is rare.

D) Something else.

Now that I reread these I'm guessing its C) and you are telling me don't get my hopes up for flowering west of the Cascades in the Pacific NW.

I have never seem them covered with flowers and am inclined to think that is the normal mode, a few here and there. Portland is hotter and may get more production. Vegetatively propagated named selections, when available (all I ever see offered here are unselected seedlings) might include those chosen either deliberately or incidentally for more prolific flowering, I suppose, this resulting in more fruit. They will certainly bloom earlier in life as they will have the sexual maturity of the parent specimen.