Thanks for posting your troubleshooting steps @Peter266808 - it’s really helpful and I would have done similarly.
I’ll perform my own investigation too, but the part is currently on backorder so I’ll have to wait for it to be delivered.
Reserved Addresses
I2C actually has a pool of reserved address spaces. 0x00 → 0x07 all have some esoteric function, and 0x78 → 0x7F are reserved for 10-bit addressing (
) and future upgrade use presumably.
Be careful with translated addresses that fall into these pools, like 0x02 - they’re unlikely to be handled correctly. Even so, I would have expected no problems from the other devices.
A stop-gap: MUX
I’ve explored creating a PiicoDev MUX to solve this kind of problem - and the product is actually “close” to completion. It just requires all the assembly and guides which represents quite a bit of work 
However, while incomplete, the code is compatible with an existing MUX product from Adafruit (it uses the same chip!). If you find that the address translator is intractible, you may like to take a look at the MUX alternative. In fact, during development, I was using the Adafruit unit to develop the PiicoDev code while I waited for my prototype PCBs to arrive… and the test case was to drive 4x Laser Distance Sensors 
