Howdy! I can add a couple of cents worth of thoughts based on my experiences.
1) Although it's been awhile, I remember seeing a main/top grate temp differential of approx 25 degrees on my 2 Star. Maybe it's a bit more, but to be honest, it has never been a problem.
2) Safe to assume that you are aware of the term "carryover cooking"? If not, carryover cooking (sometimes referred to as resting) is the phenomenon that food retains heat and continues to cook even after being removed from the source of heat. ... The larger and denser the object being heated, the greater the amount of temperature increase due to carryover cooking. So, if you are pulling a chicken from the grill that has been cooking at 325-375 when the internal temp is at 160ish, you can typically expect an easy 8-10 degree (sometimes more) increase in internal temp due to carry over cooking. I typically pull chicken when they hit 155 in the breast. But to be honest, I rarely cook whole (even spatchcock) chickens... as I much prefer individual parts. By cooking each part indivdually, I am able to pull each piece off at the exact desired temp, which gives my much better and more consistent results.
3) Please don't take this as a knock against you... but I can assure you that your MAK will turn out insanely moist food IF the internal temp of the food coming from it has a correct ending point (after carry over).
4) If you do not have a Thermoworks Thermapen, then please do yourself a favor and make the purchase. Out of all of the cooking gadgets I have purchased over the years, I could honestly toss 99% of them in the garbage and still turn out great food IF I have nothing other than my Thermapen. It's a complete game changer!
5) Regarding the top grate being hotter... there is another way to think of that in an advantageous way. For example, if I am cooking ribs, I can set my Pellet Boss at 210 and know that my ribs are cooking in an ambient temp closer to 230-235. Why do I find that a good thing? Well, one thing that we know to be true about all pellet cookers... the lower the set temp on the control, the more smoke production you'll see. I get a TON of smoke with the Pellet Boss set to 210
Hope some of this helps a bit