In fact, there are no arrays there when the configuration is built. It’s just a key-value pair dictionary. So you end up with string keys, something like
"mysectionouter:mysectioninner:0:foo" = 1.
So when in your config you define an array, the following happens:
appsettings.json:
"mysectionouter:mysectioninner:0:foo" = 1
"mysectionouter:mysectioninner:0:bar" = 2
appsettings.production.json:
"mysectionouter:mysectioninner:0:bar" = new1
result:
foo = 1
bar = new1
So it’s just index-based, and next configuration just overrides a key. In your second example, you achieve nothing but changing the index. Representation would be:
"mysectionouter:mysectioninner:1:bar" = new1
So back to your question: arrays are tricky in appsettings, and though supported, are generally hard and not intuitive to use.
By index you may get a weird merge of two not related objects, if you define different sets of settings in your files, like settings A and B in the first config, and C in second, you will get C and B in the result, and you likely don’t want to have B at all. Worse still, you can get a mix of A and C if you define only some fields of each object.
I’d recommend using some other files for storing this kind of information. You can also break in the debugger just where the configuration is loaded and see for yourself how these keys are build to get more insight.