to burn up the head and not the rest is due to oil starvation of the system. a instance would be that these cars can slosh the oil in the oil pan away from the pick-up starving the system of oil causing the head to go dry but the bottom still having oil to splash around lubricating the lower end. this can be caused by hard long turns (on and off ramps).
now if you ran low on oil it would be the opposite. it would pump what littil oil you have up into the head and starve the bottom end of any oil. which is not a design flaw of our cars, its just user end stupidity(sssh)
oh and you guys a common way of telling if its rings is if it still smokes bad after running and even more if your hard into the gas. and if its the head gasket is if there is oil in the coolant or coolant in the oil, or if you can smell the exhaust and it will smell like a high pitch funk. and you would be loosing coolant through the motor.