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You have probably seen code written by the best programmers you know, and I guess you are comparing their work with the code in open source projects. As the rest of us can't see their code, it's impossible to agree with you, so we can only trust you blindly. But "trust" with something so technical is a bad criteria, and that's why open source software is good for showing your approach to problem solving and your programming style.

I think the idea of "doing open source work" sounds a bit disproportionate. At least to me. Instead, think about people sharing some small tools they have built for themselves. Even if they work for IBM, they should be able to customize their environment by tweaking some tool or writing a script to make their lives easier. They only have to share that code, not to show off but to help others with similar problems.