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My grandmother (father's mother) was the only grandparent I had contact with as a child, and I stayed overnight around once a month when my parents just had to get away. However, my parents were always very careful to call far in advance to ask if it was allright, and to never leave me longer than what was agreed upon. They never expected her to take me, and on many occasions she said no. They were very careful not to trample on her goodwill, and this is the way I'd like to be treated when I'm a grandparent.
As to the spoiling... my reward for behaving all day and helping around the house was a 5 minute "look time" through Toys-R-Us. Asking for anything, no matter how inexpensive, would cause my grandmother to lecture me on the great depression, and we'd leave right away. As I got older and better at controlling my impulses, I found that by behaving well I'd sometimes get an extra 5 minutes. Those 5 minutes were the extent of my spoiling with her, and in all honesty, I think it was a good thing. I almost never begged because of it.
More to the point, it's not the grandparent's job to spoil the child - if anything, I think it creates the same sort of imbalance you see when one parent becomes the "fun parent" and the other the "discipline parent". My family's approach was consistant in regards to discipline, and in the long run, I feel it was good for me.
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