How well do you work with others

This question in particular is for web designers and how well you work together with seo specialists but can be directed in either direction between coders, designers, seo specialist, and graphic designers etc.

I am curious to know how well you work together with others and set it up so that neither's area of expertise in infringed upon and how this is juggled iwth the clients need for security (not allowing too many cooks in the kitchen).

To be specific - I recently had a run-in with an seo specialist (as referred to by the client). Considering his expertise (seo), I had envisioned he would simply send me requested changes to titles, descriptions, keywords, alt tags, text etc. and considering it's seo not design, I did not feel threatened by this. Evidently he has been burned in the past and so his inflexible policty is he get's full access to the website - period. Non-negotiable. This set me back a bit.

My over question is that is this normal in the industry? What am I missing when it comes to a designer / coder working with an seo specialist that does not reside in the same office?

The sites I build are straight html/css, not cms based. I've since come up with a plan b (WordPress). We'll see if it'll work. Just curious as to the norm of designer v seo specialist. Thank you for your time.

With that being said, if I were looking for an seo specialist to work with me in terms of improving titles, keywords, descriptions etc., is there someone here up for the challenge (without full access to the site) and what do you charge?

Rob

PS. On a completely different side note - I had asked a question in the seo section: "duplicate content - http v https". Can someone have a look and send me your thoughts? Thank you in advance.