Alright, I neglected to mention what may be key information. Before the oil pooled up I had to crank it for several minutes to get it to fire up. A friend suggested the oil built up in the cylinders and had nowhere to go but through the valves.

I had run the battery dead cranking and cranking and then had to recharge and attempt again before it would finally fire up.

This in mind, I put the exhaust back on and Im going to swap in new plugs and fire it up to see what happens. Im hoping its something this simple, the oil symptom appeared out of nowhere.

Update, I put her back together and still only running on 1 cylinder. A little more oil burned too. I traced the problem back to the carbs. The plug was getting soaked immediately and wouldnt fire so I checked the intake valve and nothing had fallen in, whew. I then tilted the carbs and noticed the horizontal cyl side was just draining gas non-stop...bingo. Im guessing the float was pulled offwhen I reinstalled the bottom.

Congrats on finding the problem and not needing a rebuild!  You may want to change your oil.  Gas in the cylinder can squeeze past the rings and dilute the oil.

Scott