No - I don't think the directory market is real.
However, I do think you can raise your site's position in search engines and page rank by posting links to it from other sites.
The one thing to remember is that search engines usually only credit you with one link from any given domain - so even if you post 100 links, if they're all from the same place, it only counts as one link.
Contributing code is a great way to get inbound links, as well as part of being a good member of the open source community.
You may be able to contribute themes for applications you enjoy working with - like WordPress, or b2evolution, or Drupal. I'm suggesting themes based on some of the other code you've posted here.