This is a very, very interesting!
George Gamow knew and worked with the "heavy hitters" of physics during its glory years of the early and middle 20th century (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gamow). His most notable discovery was "quantum tunneling". In his book, The Great Physicists from Galileo to Einstein (ISBN 0-486-25767-3), he highlights issues with the polarization of light as the reason why the "ether" (aka Huygens' "world ether") was eventually discarded by standard physics:
Gamow noted that Lord Kelvin investigated this difficulty and hypothesized that the ether had "plasticity". But Gamow concludes that such a stance leads to the ether having a molecular structure, and "such a hypothesis would only have led to further complications."
Gamow died before quarks and "dark matter" were found or deduced, so his complaint can already be attacked. Further, his doubts rely solely upon known factors of the mid-20th century regarding the polarization of light.
I am very interested in any ideas which provide "rigid structure" to an ether while allowing "plasticity" as Lord Kelvin proffered.
XXIN, can you expand upon your ideas?
Thanks!!
JAK