Farsight, you continue to present quotes out of context to support your own objective.
See the quote by
Robert B. Laughlin, Nobel Laureate in Physics, endowed chair in physics, Stanford University:
"It is ironic that Einstein's most creative work, the general theory of relativity, should boil down to conceptualizing space as a medium when his original premise [in special relativity] was that no such medium existed [..] The word 'ether' has extremely negative connotations in theoretical physics because of its past association with opposition to relativity. This is unfortunate because, stripped of these connotations, it rather nicely captures the way most physicists actually think about the vacuum..."
While it is true that historically the above portion in bold represents how Einstein's introduction has been interpreted, the following from his introductory paper seems to contradict the statement at least as far as what Einstein's initial intent was. Pay attention below, to the use of the word "superfluous" in bold which is the same as saying "unnecessary". Einstein did not prove the ether as non-existent, with that paper, he only demonstrated the concept of an ether was not required to explain the involved observations and conclusions. In fact the Lorentz Ether Theory remained a competitive explanation vs. SR, until the introduction of GR. At which time it was unable to make a similar transition from a local classical description of experience consistent with a flat spacetime, to a description of gravitation. The opposition to relativity Laughlin references might easily be the competing Lorentz Ether Theory, which failed to transition with SR to GR and a description of gravity.
Einstein said:
The introduction of a ``luminiferous ether'' will prove to be superfluous inasmuch as the view here to be developed will not require an ``absolutely stationary space'' provided with special properties, nor assign a velocity-vector to a point of the empty space in which electromagnetic processes take place.
Additionally, by quoting Laughlin out of context you misrepresent his intent. Whether you look at modern theoretical models, from the context of GR where spacetime is treated as dynamic, or from many of the theoretical models emerging, as explorations of quantum gravity and even inertia, as emergent and involving some interaction between classical mass and vacuum energy, "space" seems to be as Laughlin points out, a relativistic ether. (Not to be confused with the 19th century concept of the aether...)
from later in the same Wiki quote of Laughlin
...It turns out that such matter exists. About the time relativity was becoming accepted, studies of radioactivity began showing that the empty vacuum of space had spectroscopic structure similar to that of ordinary quantum solids and fluids. Subsequent studies with large particle accelerators have now led us to understand that space is more like a piece of window glass than ideal Newtonian emptiness. It is filled with 'stuff' that is normally transparent but can be made visible by hitting it sufficiently hard to knock out a part. The modern concept of the vacuum of space, confirmed every day by experiment, is a relativistic ether. But we do not call it this because it is taboo.
Most of what I have read suggests that Einstein defended his theoretical perspective, over the Lorentz Ether Theory, without going so far as to claim that there was no either of any sort. But don't mistake this comment as any suggestion that I believe Einstein accepted the existence of the aether. Again he did not find it necessary to explain experience, but at the same time he did not specifically reject the general concept as a whole, only some of the associated 19th century definition and conclusions.
