Add entry to ex history (broken recently)

I have the following function in my .vimrc

function! AddToExHistory(cmd)
execute "normal! q:i" . a:cmd
endfunction

I adds the command 'cmd' to my ex history (command history) without executing it.
One way to use it, is the following:

map gls :call AddToExHistory('!ls')<CR>

If I now type 'gls', and then 'q:' I can see ':!ls' as the most recent entry in my ex history.

After I updated my Gentoo installation this has stopped working. (Typing 'gls' has no apparent effect)

My questions:

- Does this work on _your_ computer?
- Do you know of any other way to add a command to the ex history?
- Is this a bug in VIM?
- Could this be caused by a recent VIM patch? Where do I find these patches?

I'm running this version:
VIM - Vi IMproved 7.4 (2013 Aug 10, compiled Oct 22 2015 15:02:48)
Included patches: 1-769
Modified by Gentoo-7.4.769

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