I've a solid experience in conversion of geocoded .DWG into shapefile, and I have a specific SW for this. I also solved the problem of conversion of the annotation and I have a script also for this task. A problem could be if the lines of the hypotetical polygons in CAD DWG don't really snap to the vertexes. In this case there would be a strong need of manual editing and it would be difficult to quote this job.
Moreover I need to know how many files are to be converted.
Question: when you say keep reference locations, I understand that CAD DWG drawings are in the coordinates of the geografical system requested (not in "drawing" coordinates, which origin it's the corner of the sheet), isn't it? Please let me know.