This always struck me as a bit odd since in some respects Pathfinder exists as a way to spit in WoTC's eye for creating 4e.
No Pathfinder does not exist to do that. No eye-spitting hereabouts. Unless it is done with horns. ;) (Ow. My emoticon lost an eye...)
Notably this seems to have changed over time: In the ARG the tiefling depicted looks much like a 3.5 tiefling, he's a human with a horn. If he wore a hat no one would even know he didn't get his bonus feat at level 1.
But in later publications, notably Bastards of Erebus since that contains many of the tiefling's ARFs the race is depicted much less subtly: Crimson skin, huge tails, giant horns, sometimes even wings or hooves too, bringing them much closer to 4e's significantly more monstrous version of the race, for better or for worse (generally I see this argued either as "Yay, less 'human with something stuck on' races" vs "Boo, monstrous b$~#@@#* to appeal to angsty teens", so pick your poison).
I've just always found that evolution a bit curious.
I dunno, the Tieflings in 2e/Planescape were fairly horny (sorry, that's a veiled reference to the she-tiefling in the 2e Planescape Monster Book). The more monstrous Tieflings in Tiefling-option books are more a function of those very options than a clone-style of 4e.
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I think the Pathfinder Role playing game exists to be a vehicle to help tell the stories in the Adventure Paths.
anlashok, The Bastards of Erabus, AP # 25, was published in 2009. The Advanced Race Guide was published in June of 2012.
As black blood troll has noted, Tieflings have all sorts of appearances.
Just out of curiosity, anlashok, if I remember correctly, wasn't the Anlashok, the Mimbari name for the Rangers in Babylon 5?
That was one of my favorite Sci Fi TV series.
Tieflings are, as has been noted already, highly varied in appearance. BAstards of erebus describes at least 3 npcs who are widely varied in appearance. I have a swashbuckler raksashan blooded tiefling who is in fact an actual bunny girl.
Pathfinder Tieflings are noted as being incredibly varied in appearance.
From the nearly completely Human, to the truly monstrous.
Yeah, the difference between PF and 4e tieflings isn't human-like vs. monstrous, it's variety vs. homogeneity. 4e tieflings all share the reptilian tail, the pointed teeth, and the goat horns.
And yet no matter how obvious or subtle the difference is, the penalty to disguise as human is constant.
Despite all the variances, tieflings in general still come down to one general description in both games: humanoid with a touch - whether heavy or light - of the fiendish.
That description is going to create a rather narrow window for illustration. That tielflings should look similar in both editions is therefore pretty much a no-brainer.
You may as well ask why Pathfinder goats look so much like 4th Edition goats. Well... because a goat IS as a goat LOOKS.
As to Pathfinder existing as a pox on 4th Ed... everybody else here was too nice to you for saying that. NOBODY spends this much time and effort on something just to poke somebody else. Paizo stated that they thought 3.x was too good to throw away and that its time was not yet up. The simplest explanation is that they meant what they said. You have provided no evidence to the contrary.