To my knowledge, there are no spouse visas in China.  What they do have is a tourist visa(L), and once in China and married to a Chinese national, go to PSB and have them issue you a residence permit using as a reason your marriage (family).  You may get the first one for 6 months to a year, after that it can be renewed as long as you remain married, and it does takes the place of your (L) visa.  For the first 5 years you may have a one year stay (and multiple entries too), after that a 2 years stay should be granted.

You will not be able to legally work with that arrangement, you will either have to get a Z work visa, or try to see if ( thru PSB ) the Labor bureau will issue a work permit after getting an FEC.

I concur. No spousal Visa.  You can convert to an L visa. If you are married to a Chinese national you will be issued an L visa up to 1 year.  Take your marriage book and your wife to the PSB. You can choose how many entries you want. This can be converted to a resident visa by your next employer.

Im not so sure about that, all cities are different as we all know. I had a married friend hanging out on his " marriage " L visa,  but they dont just give it to you forever, one day he went to extend it and they only gave him 3 months. And he was only married 2 years. Plus with the new visa laws, you cant change your visas without leaving the country or going back to your own country. So he went to singapore.  Its still an L visa , so Im not sure you could just go to the PSB and exchange if for the visas/ permits needed to work legally

I was on a spousal resident permit but I had to change it when I began work and that involved leaving mainland.