Thanks for the responses. In other circumstances, I would agree with the "buy speakers now, amplification later" route. However the driving factor of all this is a particular pain point: connectivity/useability. My display has only one HDMI input which it disables if no active signal is transmitting. My receiver has none. So I'm having to run an HDMI switcher for video and run HDMI+optical out of my devices for audio. This added layer of complexity causes the system to not communicate correctly all of the time. (Except when it does.) There's no direct HDMI input button on the TV so you have to cycle through all of the inputs to get to the HDMI port. Even with a Harmony remote and task-based options, this doesn't always work properly.
tldr; Wife doesn't like using the system in its current state. I don't mind pressing the "help" button and cycling the inputs as needed or juggling the various remotes.
Speakers might not be a priority for a couple of years yet, however as I said in my previous post, think something like either the KEF Q700's or EMPTek T55i for speakers. Farily easy-driven models.