Dear Spencer Scoular,
Yes, let's "look in the right place".
Lee Smolin perhaps did so, and Pentcho Valev tried to make aware of that. Unfortunately, Lee Smolin's 2015 essay omitted his own arguments, and Lee does not risk responding to any question.
I wonder why you didn't mention the book by Zeh.
If you have objections to my opinion that agrees with Shannon's, you might comment on my essay(s).
Finally, I would like to make you aware of the essay by Phipps. What he presents is not new and now for my taste not sober enough formulated. My readiness to understand it as a compelling refutation of what led to spacetime is based on a late insight of mine:
The expectation of Maxwell and Michelson to find a natural reference point in space was not logically warranted. The only natural point of reference belongs to the border between elapsed and future time scales. I hope we can agree on this qualitative clarification.
Sincerely,
Eckard Blumschein