Lines of Code is as good an estimate of a programmer's skill as MHz is a good estimate of a CPU speed.
Here where I work we have two Russian guys working on the back end of our system. I doubt those guys produce more than 10,000 lines of code per year. Yet their code just works. And it is infinitely scalable, super flexible and plain just works.
When you find a "bug" in their code you better have your shit together because 9.99 times out of ten it's a problem on your side not their. It's also perfectly flexible. Any time I need to use their code and come to them and tell them about the mountain of code I have to write they always say (with a thick Russian accent): "Bob, do not do that. You don't need. You just have to implement this one interface and instantiate this thing here and you can use our stuff and it will do what you need. Actually it's even simpler, you just need to post that message here and the system will do everything!"
Nobody, counts their lines of code. Their shit just works and is great. It's the backbone of our product and the competitive advantage we have in our vertical field.
The old adage goes that 20% of the code provides 80% of the functionality. Those Russian guys wrote THAT 20% for us.