Punch is mostly a matter of equalization, the sweet frequencies lay somewhere in the lower mids...

Btw, a compressor only affects signals that go above a certain treshold, the signals that are low enough in amplitude are not affected... unless you're talking about make-up gain, but that's not really part of the compression.
An expander is what boosts low level signals that go below a certain treshold.

Compression can even out the loudest sounds a bit in your pplaying, but it doesn't add much punch... Especially when using distortion/overdrive(which compress your sound already), compression will make your playing sound rather dull because you're robbing your sound of any dynamics that were left.