Is it wet oil, or just heavily carboned. Was the car running real rough?
I would think drippy wet oil would be a serious ring issue would cause a very rough operation, heavily carboned might be not firing hot enough maybe?... and still give a rough operation.
Broken rings would most def cause a boat load of smoke, and a regular loss of oil.
Other possibility might be the seals around the valves failing. More likely if you're seeing wet oil on the plugs.
I've seen this on a Dodge van I had, but the symptoms were, not totally smooth idle but livable, and (very) light smoke from the exhaust on first start but would stop smoking when the engine got to temp.
This would show wet oil on the plugs (and pistons) after the car has sat for a while.
A valve job cleared that up.
