Stupid Arnold mold

The problem is the mold itself.

1. Young John didn't know arnies face. if anything I could see the scared militant Sarah doing her best to get some past video of his face to warn young John and show him. but from his reaction and form never saying anything that didn't happen.

2. it would have made Sarah that much more likely to flee/fight an Arnold mold and be counter helpful to having her listen to the T800 if for whatever reason he tried to enlist her help to find John first.

Yeah that was my take on it too, Skynet is actually a moron otherwise there would be no game at all.
Including his prison camps. WTF is up with those?

But this sort of decisions are ludicrously stupid, come on, he couldn't figure out that humans look different so it's a bad idea to print his infiltrator units all with the same face?

But yes, Skynet is clearly a moron. Maybe its super AI is not that capable of putting two and two together. Afterall his main bright idea is that humans are his enemies....why exactly?

Completely reasonable and logical explanation.

That s a good technical explanation, but it also reinforces the idea that Skynet is a moron. Which actuality is an integral element of the franchise, so it fits.

Imagine the laughs inside the bunker:
"hey John, it's that Schwarzenegger model approaching..."
"Again?! We just terminated one 20 minutes ago"
cut to Arnie's head still smoking on the floor.
A heavy boot steps right next to it.

The t800 knocks on the metal gate.
(holding his laughters) "Who is knocking at my door?"
(in a thick accent} "I am me, the human person. Let me in, asshole!"
"Oh, it's you dude! yeah, that 'asshole' at the end really sold your performance...just come a bit closer to the hole next to the gate so I can ID you...."
The t800 looks straight in a laser cannon hole on the wall.

Nah

What always cracks me up is....yes, same general mold (of Arnie).
However, the T-800 in the first movie has that feathered side part hairstyle....(which later gets singed by flames and turns into a cool, spikey look).

In the second film.....the T-800 arrives already having the cool spikey look, LOL.

And I think it just came down to the fact that Arnie (the actor) had settled into that look and felt it was cooler than his 80's side part, so he (and Cameron) just went with it for the T-800 in the second movie.

At least Skynet didn't give the T-800 a mullet with a body wave in back.

Yes, I wrote it in the OP
"Btw, in T1 we see a T800 infiltrate a bunker and he looks nothing like Arnie."

That makes the concept of having a second terminator with Arnie's face in T2 even more stupid.

Yeah part 1 had a different Terminator played by Franco Columbu in the flashback. The idea of multiple Arnold molds is something that came from T2. Though it is a big planet and there's seemingly minimal way to gauge identity in the war torn future, so it's possible Skynet might make a few copies of a certain mold and sends them to different regions before moving to a new one for the next batch. When they sent the terminators back in time Skynet was basically defeated, so maybe the Arnold mold was the final one developed/available and there was a couple other unactivated ones for the resistance to utilize. That's a stretch but not impossible.

The idea pushed by later movies that seemingly every Terminator looks like Arnold is stupid and a result needing to shoehorn Arnold into each movie.

That is a great reason, and it worked perfectly. And I wouldn't want it any other way.

But I doubt Skynet had any knowledge of it.