Book cover art inaccuracy

['thul]

Characters rarely match the book cover. A society in one book where people used steel plate armor was depicted bare-chested wearing ridiculous gold-based armor.
Another book depicted someone riding a dragon. That much was correct. The incorrect was that the cover depicted him in a giant gold saddle (1), wielding an extremely long spear (2), and the dragon spitting fire (3). His clothes were probably also incorrect (4).

1: who would make a gold saddle?
2: dragon wings create a lot of updraft. Impossible to hold a long spear without endangering the dragon
3: have any idea what spitting fire would do to a throat?
4: common silliness.

anyways, getting faces to match for a cover is practically impossible, unless of course author has a page-long description of the character, and if author has that, one can bet the artist wont read that page.