What you see in Rodimus vision is narrated by the wisdom of the ages so the visuals may be just for Rodimus benefit otherwise those robots contradict the kind seen in the historical video in the episode Desertion of the Dinobots BUT that video could have been full of actors rather then any video feed and it's not unknown for the transformers to do this as seen in Megatrons Master Plan where the Decepticons played Autobots to fool humans.
Well let's talk about consistency and continuity in the visual storytelling of the Sunbow G1 cartoon 🫠
In Forever is a Long Time Coming we meet a young A3. He looks like this.
What a dapper young robot. Look at that mustache. Clark Gable would be jealous.
Ok. Here's Alpha Trion in War Dawn.
An older look. His mustache looks the same but it's white now, signifying aging. And his forehead crest and helmet have started to take shape as the Alpha Trion look we will know and love.
Here's Alpha Trion in the show's preset.
Full Old Man beard and mustache. Facial hair on robots is, I know, a touchy subject for some, but there's no denying that the Sunbow cartoon used it with A3/Alpha Trion to effectively convey age and time progression through various flashbacks and time travel episodes and that should be comm....
wait...
This is Alpha Trion from Five Faces of Darkness Pt 4
...oh snap. This should take place between the first and second pics above. This is well after the events of Forever is a Long Time Coming but also prior to the events of War Dawn. In fact the narration over this scene firmly places it before War Dawn, with Sentinel Prime being killed by Megatron, giving the Matrix to Alpha Trion. The narration explains that Alpha Trion kept the Matrix safe until a new Autobot leader emerged, Orion Pax who became Optimus Prime.
So why does Alpha Trion look like his present form here, and not like either his FiaLTC or WD appearances? Hell, WD was made the season prior so they clearly had that character model available. Yet instead they used Alpha Trion's present day character model.
I suppose you could rationalize this if you wanted. Depending on how robot facial hair works he either "shaved" or otherwise changed his appearance. Maybe Alpha Trion went through an Old Man phase before reverting to a young look only to go full Old Man later on.
Maybe.
Or maybe it was an 80s cartoon made to sell toys. Sure, it was staffed by people from writers to voice actors to artists who did seem to care and tried to put out the best show they could, but they were still restrained from the budgets and time constraints of an 80s cartoon made to sell toys.
Given the other continuity hiccups that happen- Constructicon origins anyone?- we're lucky it's as consistent with its own backstory as it is.