>> Top of pot soil is dry as a bone.. but at the bottom its wet as can be.
Here are some guesses and questions.
1.
How often do you water? Maybe top-watering more frequently would keep the top moist.
2.
If your mix is mostly peat, once the top drys out it's about as good a wick as parafin. Try re-hydrating it slowly, a little at a time and see if that re-establishes wicking. In a really extreme case, add a drop or two of dishwashing soap to a gallon of water to help wet the peat. Warm water might help.
(I hate peat because for me its always way too soggy, holds WAY too much water, prevents drainage and lets no air in. But I overwater and water from the top.)
3.
Does your potting mix have good "wicking" ability? Peat, vermiculite and pine bark should help "wick" water up from the bottom by capillary action.
What is in your soil mix? Is it uniform top to bottom?
Capillary attraction or wicking won't work, however, if the soil has abrupt changes in texture or composition. For some reason, capillary attraction is broken if a fine mix changes to coarse mix abruptly. Ideally, the mix in a pot should be uniform from top to bottom if you want to wick water up or down.
If the bottom of your pots are fine and peaty, but the top is coarse, sandy and gritty, you have the worst of both worlds.
Some people put gravel and sand in the bottom of a pot, thinking that improves drainage downward. Actually the abrupt change from soil to grit just breaks the capillary column, and the soil might as well be sitting on concrete as sand. It's kind of like a siphon swallowing a bubble of air: it breaks the "capillary suction".
For the bottom layer to 'pull' water down from above, the soil mix has to GRADUALLY change composition.
I wondered if there was an abrupt change in your mix that prevented the dry top from wicking water back UP?
3.
Do you bottom-water without a strongly-wicking soil mix? Maybe you need to water from the top, more often. Maybe you have way too litle peat instead of too much!
Without knowing anything about your mix, I'll still guess the bottom would be less soggy if the mix were faster-draining. Then you could top water frequently, and overwater all you want, because water would drain freely out the bottom.
