AE - Randomly place ~100 layers and then move to the middle
I would use a particle system to do this, like Particular or Particle World.

Particular is part of the Trapcode Suite of AE plugins, and is the easiest to use.

http://www.redgiant.com/products/all/trapcode-particular/

Generate a load of particles in random positions
Make a pre-comp with all the different text layers on different frames, so one text object per frame.
Tell the particle generator to use the pre-comp to texture the particles
Have the particles emit from a central point to their random positions.
Then time reverse the whole comp.

This video tutorial explains how to get different textures (in this case different leaf images) on to each particle: