I'm not sure "We're smart and socially inept" would fly as an excuse even were it true.

I think the problems seen in OSS projects are the same seen in any collaborative project. People settle into their "territory" of a project and get their backs up when somebody encroaches on that, and communication via the internet is several grades more difficult than face to face (e-mail, newsgroups, whatever you use, they all lend themselves towards "Person A states X, Person B misinterprets it to mean Y and makes a giant post/mail about Y, everybody argues about Y" and other annoying miscommunications). There are a million pitfalls when a large group works on a project.

The general attitude of programmers might not be helping, but I don't think it is the root of the evil.