Winter growing - Cattleya crispa

I have been growing a C. crispa (also known as Laelia crispa) for a couple of years.  This year it put up a big fat pseudo-bulb (biggest one so far), so I was feeling optimistic that the next growths would bloom.  Now I'm not so sure.  The new growths look pretty good, but it sure seems that this most recent p-bulb, which was really round this past summer, has been significantly depleted to foster the new growth.  I wonder if in spite of my efforts to be careful with water this winter, the plant has been too wet and many roots have rotted (I may try to assess tomorrow).  Alternatively, maybe I am not watering enough.  Finally, it may be that this is the normal growth pattern.  Maybe in nature the old bulbs MUST be used to supplement the new growths because water is scarce at that time of year - then later in the year the old bulbs re-hydrate.

It blooms in the summer in its natural habitat in Brazil.  Doing a bit of searching (thank you Wikipedia), I found that in a location typical of its natural distribution, the city of Rio de Janeiro, summers are wetter and winters are drier (I should have known this...).  I'm going to make the possibly erroneous assumption that the inland climate is not extremely different in terms of rainfall.  If this assumption is OK, then new growths are generated at the driest time of the year (winter), and then they bloom in the summer.  So this makes me lean toward the third hypothesis - new growth is generated in dry times and I should expect the older bulbs to look like this.  However, if I can determine that the roots are in good shape, perhaps I should give it a bit more water. 

Obviously I don't really know what I'm doing.

My purpuratas show a similar, though less extreme growth pattern - however, they differ dramatically in that they are putting out new roots, while this species is not.