Yeah, now that I read the sentence, it _is_ confusing. What I meant really is that "even if it was true that German was inherently a better language to express Bakker's philosophy, it still would not make a translation necessarily better". Now I hope it is easier to understand.
As for translator-writer collaboration, I've heard somewhere at a convention that Patrick Rothfuss has a special forum for his translators, where he answers their questions about next installments in his series, because otherwise they would not be able to translate some things properly, not knowing the meaning and significance of some elements. If so, that's certainly a rare thing.
Although I must say I don't really like the "nonfan-fic" and "cheating" part. Languages are different, what is acceptable in one, will not be acceptable in another. So a translator always has to make some changes, because otherwise readers in his native language would hate the book (and the translator, too). Things like jokes, puns, allusions to other literary works - they have to be made to work in another language, even if it means deviating from the original.
And now a personal anecdote. When I was a teenager, I really liked "Conan", I read all Howard's stories in my native language and thought they were great. Last year, since Howard's work is in public domain, I downloaded them from Project Gutenberg and read them in English. And this was different from what I read those years ago (remember, I have a great memory, so I remembered those Conans from my youth). It seems the translator (who is quite good, I've read some of his other works) smoothed Howard's language (which from time to time is simply awful) and also toned down his opinions, all this "great, primitive and yet inherently moral barbarian vs. degenerate civilized peoples" stuff. And I don't necessarily think it was wrong - I had a lot of fun reading the books, after all.