It's popular to bash the ether theory because nobody really remembers anymore why they came up with it. Actually it's brilliant, and the fact that people are going back to the idea that atoms are knotted flows is a good indication that we should re-interpret what the ether MIGHT be rather than simply throwing out the idea because the analogy doesn't hold in literally every way. All the MM experiment shows is that the ether is frame-relative and not fixed absolutely in space like a literal fluid. And why would it be? I don't know, but people seem quick to reject the model based on this completely arbitrary feature.