Its impossible to use strongly typed vars instead because we are importing things from a arbitrary assembily.
I can do something like:
[ImportMany(typeof(PluginBase))]
Collection(Lazy<PluginBase>) _plugins;

[Export(typeof(PluginBase))]
public class TestPlugin : PluginBase{}

but if I try and get the type of any of the plugins, it'll return typeof(PluginBase) not typeof(TestPlugin);

No use to me at all.