The plate under the carb is self contained, so if you have a leak by the carb, check your hoses, if they are good, find a replacement water heater plate. Since the intake log is build into the head and there isnt any coolant running through it, I have no idea how you might have gotten cracks in the carb mounting platform. It might be alright to go to the hardware store and put a coolant flush "T" in also for a short fix until you have time (and more knowledge) to fix it the right way. I say might because I dont know if 200's have a problem with icing up when the temperature drops.
If you were to put a 250 head directly onto a '65 200 block you would not gain performance, you would lose it. The 250 has larger combustion chamber size. This can be fixed of course by milling the head to get the new head combustion chamber to be the same size or slightly smaller to make up for the new headgaskets which are slightly thicker then the OE ones.
when you got some free time go check out
http://falconperformance.sundog.net/compcalculator.asp
it is set for a generic stock 200 6cyl. Hit calculate when you first get there, and it will tell you that this particular 6cyl has 8.7cr. If you imagine that you just bolted on a 250 head bump the Combustion Chamber Volume up to 65 and the gasket thickness up to .045 (ouch CR drops to 7.5)
But after you measure your old head and new head then have a machine shop mill the heads so that you get a 50cc combustion chamber you will get back to a respectable 9.1cr (on this hypothetical engine, your results may vary) Make sure to measure your old head before having the new one milled.
ron