disagree with "you really only have one avenue left".
scenario:
I have an Excel file that reports data  that is stored in 12,000
MSWord documents.
The Excel VBA creates a list of files  and opens each one in turn.
Then, the Excel VBA utilizes the functions available in Word VBA
to extract the data and store it in an Excel sheet.
A similar technique could be used here.
I believe that AutoCAD utilizes VBA.
Tim needs to look into the ACad VBA functions necessary to
extract the data from the ACad tables.
Then, place these commands into the Excel VBA.
It CAN be done, but I don't have AutoCAD available so that I can test it.