turbo
I think you should disassemble a stock engine and compare the oil control ring to an out of the box Hastings oil control ring. They are one in the same! The design of the oil control ring is a very easy way to tell ring manufacturers apart. I have seen many engines(not just Saturn) running Hastings rings that smoke. Some do it out of the box, some don't. The similarities to these characteristics and how Saturn engines burn oil in the same way are scary.
I know the facts because I've seen it first hand. If you rebuild your Saturn engine with Hastings rings you run the same risk of having an oil burner as you did stock. Also, you say I should "ask my local machine shops" well, a very close personal friend of mine runs a machine shop, and will not under any circumstances use Hastings rings, as per firsthand oilburning experiences with them.
In the end, you can do what you want; but it certainly wouldn't be a surprise to me if your engine starts to consume oil.
EDIT: In reply to "have you had them......."
Yes. In my rebuild kit they sent me Hastings rings, which were of the same exact design that came out of my engine.
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