Rite vs. Particular Church

I don't have time to get links (see the Vatican II Document on the Eastern churches), but it is the case that the language used to refer to churches of rites other than Roman has changed in the past 50 years. Referring to different "rites" of the Church was inadequate, since the rite is used by the local Church and not the highest reality. But it is not evident to me that replacing "rite" with "particular Churches" is an improvement. This may be a useful sociological designation replacing the earlier category or classification (by rites), but does it reflect an actual distinct ecclesiological reality? Is it "theologically correct"? It seems to me that one can refer to a group of local churches which are linked by liturgical rite and culture and ethnic composition, as well as having a common structure of governance, but to refer to this group as constituting a "Church" in some sense, while being part of the Church universal, may be going too far. Do theologians who adhere to "communion ecclesiology," whether Catholic or Orthodox, have the same difficulty?

Edit. Even ifa "Particular Church" were to be equivalent to a "National Church" (tied to a nation or people, rather than a state, though a nation may have its own state), its unity would be grounded in natural and cultural (ethnic, civic, and liturgical) identities and by the decision of the bishops to be united into a certain collective, but this unity would not be the same as the unity proper to the Church Universal.