i've got a few cones like yours, kinda of papery thin and starting to brown. i've pulled a couple off and there's not much to them. they didn't look worth keeping.
the cascades are probably 3/4" long and the nugget are around 1" - 1.25" long. they're quite a bit larger than the cascades.
like yours, the bottom third to half are going nuts again now. I had been trimming those "suckers" off when the main vine was going up so they wouldn't hold it back, but since the main vine has quit growing, i'm just going to let the bottoms do what they want.
I wasn't expecting much this year.. just being able to pull a cone off and smell it is pleasure enough..