LateLag - I guess I should have been a little clearer when I described what I did.
I brought in 7 villagers 1 at a time from over 100 blocks away, set down a composter, then after the green particles (assuming that he claimed that workstation) I went back and got another. Put him in the adjoining cell, set down a composter, waited till the green particles, then repeated this step 5 more times. 7 farmer villagers in a row in their own 2x3 cells, No other villagers or workstations within 100 blocks besides the ones in their own holding cell that they claimed. I traded with them over and over. They kept changing workstations for some odd reason. I had to open the cells and when their work day got started and they shuffled around to get to their newly changed workstations, I locked them back up again, they restocked, then I traded again locking out most of their trades. Again, same thing, after a while, random green particles were emitted by some and again, I had to open the cells and wait for when they went back to work to their workstations, several selected new composters. Again, once they went to work at their composter I locked them in again. Again I traded and locked trades, again they did the same thing, changed workstations. This is madness.
I suggest that we allow the villager work at any workstation of their profession. Change the code to nearest, and if that is taken, pick the next as long as there is nothing blocking their pathfinding to get to it. Something, Anything is better than this.
Tested this myself to recreate. The latest preview version of Optifine for 1.20 will cause this. I suggest the user wait until the stable version of Optifine 1.20 is released.