[Casey76]

All of my peppers are looking good, with lots of flowers appearing, and three or four of the advanced plants are starting to fruit.

At the moment they are pretty much straight up and down, like a cordon tomato.  Is this right, or should they be bushy?

The tallest ones are about a foot and a half tall.

[mumofstig]

They do branch, but not usually til they're taller.

I pinched mine out lower this year to try to get them to branch, but they're still very upright 

[GrannieAnnie]

And some branch more than others.  I think it was my lemon chillies that stood up very straight and tall.

[Raven50]

We managed to keep two of our chili plants alive over the winter, sitting in the kitchen window, so they are now about 2ft tall, but they still haven't branched very much. They do have flowers and fruit on them though 

We put ours in a cold frame, along with the sweet peppers, which acts as a mini-greenhouse in the summer, as they seem to like it hot, but not too humid. I tried the first year growing them with the tomatoes, but the humidity was too much for the peppers. The only thing to do is to help pollination along if the weather is too cool to open the lights by rubbing each flower in turn with the tip of a finger. I can't remember which chili variety I started off with - it might have been a Jalapeno - but I have saved the seed from the strongest plants for the last three years, so they're just 'the chilis' now  They aren't particularly hot, but they add a mild kick!
I have found the the sweet pepper variety 'California Wonder' do the best on our allotment, with an average of four or five largish peppers per plant - fewer if you want them really red, because of our relatively short growing season.

[mumofstig]

for some reason my chillies branch, but my peppers (Doux D'Espagne)  don't 

[Casey76]

I have a variety of sweet peppers (Jericho (green/red), Gypsy (green/yellow), Bianca (white), orange, Mavras (purple) and a cream one) and some are definitely more (shrubby) than others, but they are mostly straight up and down.

Funnily enough, my best performers so far are my supermarket "sweet pepper" and "hot pepper"

[Trillium]

Most of my sweet peppers are tall and not very bushy. In fact, I often stake them on my twirly canes that I use for toms.