Demo as much as you can both ways and see for yourself. When people say that an amp cannot make a huge difference, they are just wrong. Take an inferior underpowered amp to drive the finest speakers and the speakers will sound like crap. Take a great amp and drive some cheap crappy speakers and you'll be surprised how good they might sound. There is an ass-backwards approach to building stereo systems today that I will never understand. Without a good amp, you have garbage. Do your demos and see for yourself.
I would not recommend going up to 200wpc, that's overkill for your speakers and yes, you could damage them. The fact that you don't have a 6k CD player seems less important, not many people do have such expensive units and get along fine. While many enjoy inexpensive receivers to drive expensive speakers, I would never suggest this practice to anyone. Go listen and you should see why.
Bill