I feel like I'm losing my mind, but I swear I'm feeling air being blown downwards in the front fan (closest to the ports) while the rear fan is sucking air into the fins.

I would hold my hand underneath the fans and I swear one is pushing and the other is pulling. It's this normal, I tried to Google but didn't see anything that actually addresses this.

Whole gaming it's 82c frames are holding though, ill have to stick a mirror down there and see if they're spinning the right way

everything is default, and I'm running MSI afterburner to see and it's running really hot hitting 90c sometimes during gaming.  I'm not sure what's going on at this point.
 
I've had this for a few years now and the temps were never more than 75c before. 

Yeah I did it just now, thermals have dropped too a steady 82c and GPU is boosting Soo that's a good indicator. It's not ideal but it's a start. Thanks!

Did you determine which direction the fans are spinning? It shouldn't be hard. All that is needed are your eyeballs. No googling required.

The ramp of the blade facing outward, should be the leading edge of rotation. It's really just common sense if you think of it as archmedes' screw.

ACX cards do vent into the case, so I assume that is what you're feeling. The way you described it made it sound abnormal.