Spreading models have become fundamental to the study of asymptotic geometry in Banach spaces. The existence of spreading models in every Banach space, and the so-called good sequences which generate them, was one of the first applications of Ramsey theory in Banach space theory. We use Ramsey theory and other techniques from infinitary combinatorics to examine some old and new questions concerning spreading models and good sequences. First, we consider the lp spreading model problem which asks whether a Banach space contains lp provided that every spreading model of a normalized block basic sequence of the basis is isometrically equivalent to lp. Next, using the Hindman-Milliken-Taylor theorem, we prove a new stabilization theorem for spreading models which produces a basic sequence all of whose normalized constant coefficient block basic sequences are good. When the resulting basic sequence is semi-normalized, all the spreading models generated by the above good sequences must be uniformly equivalent to lp or c0. Finally, we investigate the assumption that every normalized block tree on a Banach space has a good branch. This turns out to be a very strong assumption and is equivalent to the space being 1-asymptotic lp. We also show that the stronger assumption that every block basic sequence is good is equivalent to the space being stabilized 1-asymptotic lp.