[gf000]

I think there is a tasteful way to selectively use var where it makes sense.

Even in your example, narrowing the variable doesn't make much sense - you are in a local scope, you control everything. Narrowing is more meaningful in fields, where var won't work by design.

Locally a well-named variable is often significantly more important than some long, somewhat useless type signature, especially when the right hand side makes it clear.