GTI 337/20th Anniversary :: Radiator Malfunction - Hot On The Top Half And Cool At The Bottom

So basically a couple months ago I picked up a 03 20th and GTI, I love the thing to pieces, recently I've got into drive it and I can watch my temp gauge steadily climb to 90 and stop. (before I go any further, I haven't gotten any overheat warnings or anything like that, I've just noticed my car is really hot all the time and the temp gauge goes to 90 within a minute or so of driving but doesn't go over). heat works fine, I've gone in the engine and tested a few things, tested the fans by jumping the connections, my large fan is dead but the small works fine. to my understanding, the large fan isn't used much unless it's really hot anyway. so I removed it and continued trying to find my problem, I felt the rad after letting the car run for a bit, the top half was hot but the bottom half was cool, took the hoses off and flushed my rad thinking maybe something was clogging it, water ran through fine, so I put it back together, put new coolant and tried again. same thing. so I took it for a rip and came back, obviously, the top hose and the rad were hot, but the bottom one was kinda warm. I looked for answers online but I can't seem to find anything like what I'm dealing with. the water pump seems to be working fine, I'm not sure how much flow is supposed to be coming through the Small hose at the top of the reservoir, But I checked it and it has a steady stream coming out of it. I've worked all the air out of the lines as well. The car isn't overheating and doesn't really pass the 90 mark, fans almost never come on but the small one kicks into low when I turn the AC on. which as far as I'm aware is what's supposed to happen.

The car feels like its running hot, checked everything I can think of. rad is hot on the top half and cools at the bottom, coolant has a steady flow back to the reservoir. no actual overheat warnings, I'm just wondering if these cars run hot normally or if I should be concerned.