Plot styles 'L' and '^'?

[Christoph Dalitz]

Hallo,

after switching from Octave 2.1 to 2.9 (as shipped with Ubuntu), I am
running into the following problems with the "plot" command:

 1) the command
        plot(x,y,"^;legend text;");
    is accepted, but does not use impulses style, but point style.

 2) the command
        plot(x,y,"^;legend text;");
    yields the error:
        error: plot: properties must appear followed by a value

It seems that the steps style is no longer supported at all, and
the impulses style is wrongly interpreted, even though the documentation
mentions both options.

Is this a bug or a feature?

PS:
I know that I could use stem() and stairs(), but these have their own
issues (see my second mail).

Thanks,

Christoph