Alexander,
You are referring to versions of LILO more than 8 years old. Since version 21, when I took over maintenance from Werner, LILO has been sensitive to the boot protocol in use. Peter has been kind enough to point out upgrades to the 2.00+ protocols when they have been introduced.
All versions of LILO since version 21 should be able to correctly handle both zImage and bzImage kernels, old and new. The command: "lilo -V -v" should indicate the version of LILO you are using, and may indicate a release date.