>Believe or not, sometimes I was utterly disappointed after reading the original - the translation was better. We did have excellent translators.
>Not anymore, though, the google et all are killing the profession.

Hmmmmhhh,
if original is bad, translated original is better - can the translation itself then be called good ?
Should a "true" translation stay at all the levels of the original ?

In a few years google might succeed at enhancing such levels as well, as quality of machine translation is now good enough to render most articles I throw at it at least understandable.