I mentioned this in a recent Facebook post but my suspicion is they planned on the fake wings from the bot mode to be the underside wings in the jet mode, similar to the G1 toy, but then they ran out of part-count and had to downgrade their plans. The fact that there's a set of wings underneath the jet and in the right position but pointing the wrong way is telling.
I'm just guessing but I can imagine them going "good plan but we've got to fit the gloves into the part count, so rather than have the second set of wings, just fold the tank parts underneath as best you can".