Jeddostotle7

these are the exact same, unchanged colors as the US and Japanese Earthrise and US release Kingdom Leader Optimus had, presumably the colors you're comparing it to are the promo pics for Earthrise Optimus which were substantially different from the deco on the final figure.

Yes, but the covers for the T30 comic books always reflected the figures they were included with moreso than the appearance of the character in the actual comic. The reason he looks so different on the cover is because notably, T30 Nightbeat's initial promo images depicted him as a retool of RTS Jazz, while later stock images and the final product ended up having him on the T30 Deluxe Bumblebee mold as shown there. Here's a pic with the earlier promo image on the different mold:

Whoever told you this Powerdasher has the wrong head were themselves completely wrong, this guy is car-Powerdasher aaalllll the way through, head and all: Here's Cromar, the Jet Powerdasher you mentioned, for reference: Note how the car Powerdasher's head resembles the new figure that is based on it far more, as it should.

Specifically so they don't spend a couple million on molds and other production costs on something that might end up not selling well enough at retail for them to recoup their costs. This way, they either for sure have enough buyers to cover the production costs, or they don't make the item.

This isn't just a random Deadpool homage, this is specifically meant to be Shattered Glass Drift, which was already a Deadpool homage, so this figure just took that concept further with the alternate head.