If they went to seed it is too late, the remaining leaves will turn brown. If it is still flowering you can cut the flower tops off, the plants will get bushier and give you more of the nice leaves that make pesto. I have the same dilemma, I also want pollination. What I do is that I cut the flowers off some of them, and do it at different times so there is always some flowering basil around. The really spindly ones try to flower sooner to reproduce. They are the ones not growing under the best conditions so they want to flower right away.

Yah, it's a tough decision :) My neighbor used to tell me when he'd visit, that "no wonder I cant get anything to grow at my place, all the bees are OVER HERE :)

I had the perfect kodak moment the other day, I have some late plantings of squash that are full of big yellow blossoms all over them and in each of these flowers were bee butts, I counted 6 in one flower all perfectly fit in with about no space to spare, if I"d only had my camera at that moment, they completely encompased the inside center of the flower butts up, face down into the flower...

Well, I'll do what you suggested and pinch back several of the ones that appear to have a chance to bush out more. I have 2 in an old wheelbarrow that did exactly what you described, they were tall and thin and spikey, the cool thing is that in my attempts to harvest their seeds, apparently, many dropped off and I have a gazillion little basil seedlings popping up all over. I'll have to definitely salvage some of them to put into the greenhouse this winter. That would be a wonderful thing, to have fresh basil to cook with all year round.

Wow, nice! yes, I had that happen one year, a bunch of volunteer basil plants. I bet they'll grow fine in the green house. Some years we can grow it all year long (outside), some years it freezes and we lose the plants.