There's also a question regarding this implementation. Plugins and themes are works of one author which they own and support since then.
Translations are (should be) pieces of collective work. There's one initial blast of translation that gets up to 99% of all language entries covered. After that anyone can easily make additions and changes and such contributions are key to maintaining a language further.
Currently translations are shared as forum attachments and that makes the process cumbersome and less effective than it could be. Any ideas on how to do it better?