If these are blocks, I saw someone use a hidden attribute for the text. They had a custom lisp for labeling which the user would run, select the block (which would get the text from the attribute), then drop the text and allow a leader to be added. It was pretty slick and the user didn't have to type the text, and it was all standard.
I use some dynamic blocks with text that can stretch and rotate. Nice thing is, if I delete the block the text is gone also.