Agreed. Once you have experienced a certain amp-speaker synergy, it is difficult to be moved away from it.
I did go thru about 3 years of auditioning of various brands of speakers. FS seemed to impress me in the showroom but always had this lingering doubt as to how they would sound at home. I have no opportunity to treat the room. The only weapon is placement.
Eventually, I picked up KEF R300 (demo unit) based on the audition of KEF Q series. Things came together and I was able to get them for 70K (landed price) from UK. Perfect speakers for my room and music taste and they came within budget. They do a fine job on movie tracks too. I am getting away without a sub by using walls to reinforce LFE to a small extant.
Over the various periods of audition the brands/series that sounded good to me were:
PSB (Imagine and Image series) paired with NAD IA
KEF (Q series) paired with my Marantz IA; demo room had Denon AVR and somehow did not sound right
Monitor Audio (Bronze series) paired with Cambridge Audio Azur series
If you have not auditioned these, give them a listen. The PSB minis I felt were good bang for the buck. If you can source from UK, they are available at GBP 250 a pair.
Coming to AVRs, these days they have become kitchen sinks. Every company is competing to max out on ports, sound formats, wired/wireless etc while compromising on basics like SQ, build and usability. The really good ones cost a bomb and sometimes unreasonably so. I have a Marantz NR1605 which is great when it comes to movies, but I have never quite got it to sing for me. May be I do not know the correct settings. Also I don't like the binding posts, cheap plastics used and kindergarten level UI.
You are going about it the right way. Get the speakers first and then the AVR/Amp.
Cheers,
Raghu