I've recently read The Scarlet Gospels, so I can say for sure...
...that giving the series back to Clive Barker would be a horrible mistake. It was a worse sequel to Hellraiser than the sh!ttier film sequels.
Thit and thpin!
Clive Barker is one of my all time favorite authors. In fact he's probably at the very top of the list. His books are pretty much all freat things with interesting concepts and a good blend of creepy of weirdly erotic, and I love him to death.
But yes, you are 100% right. Scarlet Gospel was just... wrong. I liked the inclusion of Harry D'Amour, and the idea of Pinhead fighting the Devil is interesting, but... Yeah, if you're a fan of the movies and the comics then the book was... weird, and wrong, and kind of annoying, especially the ending. The whole book reads like the setup for a new book, probably called "D'Amour and the Devil", which again I'd be fine with if he had pretty much ripped out all of the Hellraiser mythology to do it.
If you want a good follow up to the events of the earlier movies, I really recommend giving the recent Boom! Comics run of Hellraiser a shot. It feels like what the Scarlet Gospel should have been.
If you want some good Hellraiser stories that aern't direct story follow ups (most of these don't even have pinhead, they have other cenobites) You should try the earlier Epic Comics Hellraiser series.
I also enjoyed the Boom! comics. They were a much better sequel. I read some of the older Epic comics in a trade paperback years ago and thought they were pretty decent. Or as "decent" as any Hellraiser story can be. ;) Will have to see if I can find trades of them at a reasonable price.
Thit and thpin!