Well before, the L visa covered the situation that a Q visa is now for, so an L visa was intended to allow visits to relatives before. With the split, I didn't know if I could visit relatives and stay with them on an L visa now or if I needed to get a Q. At least how I interpreted the visa definitions was that if there are separate visas for visiting people in China, then if you have an L visa, you are not visiting anyone and thus have to stay in a hotel or some other sort of accommodation that is not someone's private home.
Purpose of trip and where you decide to stay are two different issues.