My other thoughts are:
what did you wash them with?
what heat setting did you dry them at?
did you use fabric softener?
Strong detergents and high heat will quickly break-down the microfiber loops, which causes the fibers to unravel, causing the linting. Fabric softener 'loads' the loops, and could cause them to break and lint as well....
I have numerous (probably in the 30's) Viper towels, and at least 5 of the glass cleaning towels - none have linted on me... I also have neatitems towels (which is the supplier to many mf resellers) and haven't had any troubles with them either.
The only towels which have ever linted on me were the Griot's towels - which have now been relegated to wheel cleaning duties.
Once they start to lint, there's not much hope for them. The lint is the result of the fibers separating (remember, a MF is built from hundreds of thousands of interwoven fibers), so if they're linting, they're most likely damaged.