Welcome aboard. Many find the hunt for equipment more fun that listening. (Gear swapping is what keeps vendors alive.)
If you haven't done so already, educate your ears. Learn music and what audio attributes you're attracted to. You mentioned Harley's book, that's a good start. The best way to learn what music really sounds like is to attend live/un-amplified performances in good sounding venues on a regular basis. Check out local folk music, larger colleges offer a variety of music (many are free). For rock genres better to play DVD/BlueRay on a good HT system rather than trying to listen to a PA system in an arena from 200 feet away.
When shopping bring a good sampling of your favorite music (I include at least 1 poorly recorded example to make sure it'd still be somewhat listenable). The internet provides ideas of what is out there and what might work for you, but isn't much good beyond that. I use shops and especially shows only for veto purposes as the only good test is in your home with your electricity/room(s)/and rest of your system. Limit yourself to 3 or 4 auditions a day and take notes. Try to arrange having competing pieces in the house at the same time for A/B testing (don't worry about blind testing, that's for labs).
I say shop for speakers first as they (and your room) are the biggest factors of how the system will sound, then look for amps that synergize best to your chosen speakers. Nearly all audiophiles over buy gear for their given spaces in my opinion (rooms are too small, poorly designed, and/or have various domestic limitations). You mentioned multi-room entertaining. Accept that most of your friends aren't there to seriously listen and probably don't appreciate good sound reproduction anyway, so invest most your budget into your system and go with Sonus/Bluesound/etc. elsewhere. (I have a $7000 system in my study and replaced leftover gear in the living room with a $100 Logitech UE smart radio. The tiny UE radio has received praises and 2 folks have bought one for themselves.)
take care,
