I was just looking at a similar frame, when your message came in, Craig, scrub back and see how the delay works on it. This is not a simple scene, and five seconds or not makes no difference.
Well, I have not made it clear obviously. You can’t have both fully, if you like to have only the best from both techniques without setting up a larger analysis what is now the one that should work.
If you like to use Dynamics, then you will have the effect of dynamics in the scene: This will then not lead to the final set up. Final as in: all letters are lined up. Yes, there is an option to switch off and let a key framed animation take over. But then it might intersect again. It would work as baked and reversed, but not if the effectors have 100% control.
I added in the previous post an option. Since you have all letters on an individual Null, you could set up start and end keyframes for that, and then before and after the collision with enough time. Then move both a little bit apart at the peak of the collision and set new key frames. The before and after determines how much it looks in flow. If too far away, then new collisions might be introduced.
The Delay set to Blend will overwrite perhaps.
I would suggest a pure Dynamic solution with a reverse cache.
Craig, if it is 5 seconds or 5 hours, if it is simple or complex, it doesn’t matter if you mix two options and expect the best out of both, and magically excluding the side effects of both.
BTW, It was not my suggestion, just a discussion to put light on the complexity you ask for.
I think the adjust the extrude as described above seems to be the most simple and efficient solution.
With effectors directing the scene and dynamics have only to show up when a collision is there, but then to shut off again and keep things running. This is certainly not simple.
Let me know what direction you would like to go.
All the best