I think it's fair to say that the fans are just as much creators of Xena as Tapert/Raimi/Shulian/Stewart/Sears and Friedman is. Let me explain why.
When you're a child you don't realize what you pick up and learn from watching art/entertainment until you get older and rewatch it. You don't understand the themes or the storylines until your mental capacity has expanded on such subjects out of experience or observation. So what happens is this show subconsciously imprints on you and gives you what you need before you even know you need it. And that continues.. Each time you watch it, you see something new in it. This is what makes the show timeless. It's like an art painting that is never finished. Just continues on painting depending on who observes it. And I guess the audience that does observe it doesn't ever realize it holds the paint brush.
And this is true with Xena more than most shows because the fans became a literal part of the production. Missy Good established a professional relationship with the original creators and wrote two of her own episodes that were aired. And because of this, so much of what she's written beyond the show is considered canon. And many other fanfiction writers as well as other types of creators on Xena are taken as canon too. So in a way, while the show ended, the story itself hadn't. And even to this day, it still hasn't. It carries on. Xena and Gabrielle truly are eternal characters. And it's because of us why they are. So the fans are an integral part to what Xena is. How it exists was the original producers/writers job. But how it continues existing is our job. Therefore, in a very literal sense, Xena is alive because we have kept her alive and continue to keep her alive with everything that we create or interpret to do with the Xenaverse.
I have always asked the question who would have succeeded the Warrior Princess and carried on her legacy if the show had ended with both Xena and Gabrielle dying. And I guess I have never answered my own question until now...
We would. We have. We will.