after reading your suggestion re full rebuild, i called a friend of mine who was a chinook mechanic in the army for several years to get his take re the connecting rod bearings.
his take is that the bearing wear is not atypical for a car with 90k mi from a visual inspection, and when i demonstrated the limited longitudinal (along crank axis) play in the connecting rod bearings for the installed pistons, he thought there was no need to change out the bearings imminently.
re the 4 vs 5 ring piston ring set, it ends up i was being a doofus and there are indeed 5 rings in the kit. the 2 oil rings that go above and below the spring ring were stuck together and looked like a single ring on initial inspection.
since this is my wife's car, i'm hopeful that it will make it another 50k mi until i'm ready to get her a new car (tahoe), so i don't have to pull the engine out and do a full rebuild.
