You're arguing for the "layer cake" hypothesis again.
It really doesn't work like that. Keep in mind that a photon that's emitted at the top of the atmosphere (and travelling downward) might have to travel a very long distance before it can actually collide with anything. There's hardly any molecules up there.
Of course you don't have that issue near the surface. The mean free path is extremely short. This all comes back to the issue I raised earlier: the concept of temperature that we use at sea level doesn't really apply at high altitudes.
*There was an article that came out many years ago called We Are Prisoners of Fire. It was an attempt by a newspaper editor to show that space travel was completely impossible because a rocket had been launched with instrumentation onboard that showed the temperature at some altitude was 1,000 degrees (or something). The editor concluded that any spaceship launched would burn up upon hitting this incandescent layer of flame high up in the atmosphere. He didn't realise- as you haven't- that the word "temperature" really doesn't have the same meaning at high altitudes.
