I'm The Man, and so is my wife....
NOT!
Anyway to topic... Adsense.
If you limit the type of companies shown, so as not to conflict with what you are selling, then you kill the intended reason for using it in the first place. The point of using adsense is not to have meaningless links - quite the opposite in fact.
Using adsense on pages where you lack information / content / links, rather than on any key page [home page] or information rich pages was my suggested use of it. This will give you more freedom with the design and placement of the service. Some playing around will be required.
Adsense can save you time in finding 1000's of relevent and current links, keeping these links fresh by constantly changing them and linking you to the adsense network.
A good example would be a motorcycle accessories trader who has an online shop. His 'for content' site provides information on biker safety and product promotion / information. He has an information rich page covering helmet safety and the law with some quality links .gov and .org sites like the DSA, IAM, RoSPA, his suppliers and manufacturers of his helmets. He even has links to well known motorcyclyist's web sites, who are pictured wearing the branded helmet in question. There are links to helmet test data reference sites and links to other sports sites where you might wear a helmet. To top it off a link to every helmet trader in every other town in the UK - those without online shops - this provides a reference to every town in the UK and the chance of negotiating links back.
However he also has fairly static pages for gloves, jackets, boots and wet weather gear. As well as being fairly static each of these pages has limited or no links to .org and .gov sites and only the UK trader links. Using adsense he is able to provide potentially interesting external content using the service to provide links out to sites [world wide] containing relevent information on each individual topic.
I hope you can see how adsense might work for you? Please note that each of the above 'pages' is actually a subdomain, each with an index page of it's own. Adsense is installed indiviually on each page with it's own settings to ensure relevent content for each.
Yes it is true that too many outbound links can trigger an issue with Google and can even get you de-listed - if you are using foul play to push your page upward. Using adsense is fine as long as it's part of your overall link strategy. Nothing in the above example would harm your site in any way.