Conceptualization of text

The fact that language works when it's essentially an arbitrary pool of signs stuck together that contains a perfectly clear message for some and is not at all understandable for others is due to the adherence to conventions that makes people able to decode the message. At the same time, it is miraculously not a static system, but flexible and very changeable, with a constant fluidity of meaning, an adaptability to ever-changing circumstances.
I feel that the basis of Barthes' arguments is rooted in the same juxtaposition concerning the production of text. On the one side there is the set of conventions acquired through cultural and educational circumstance and on the other there's expansion and inversion of said conventions to accomodate new ways of dealing with the process of textualization.
Do I believe that the production of a text is entirely disconnected from the author? No, because s/he is the conduit and will always leave marks on the result, like a bullet bears the marks of a barrel it's fired from. In both cases they are unique and can be matched back together after being separated. Do I believe that a text cannot be interpreted without the author? No, because we have been in the business of interpreting texts for far longer than the notion of the author is even in existence.
The crux is the acknowledgement that intertextuality and discourse (which I believe are the actual content of Barthes' 'Text') play a big role in the reception and conceptualization of 'works' that go way beyond the author as for example a physical entity in the text or a indeed legal body which needs to be taken into account upon reflexion.