There are many ways and reasons to transform variables. The transformation that you encountered is called 'coding.' It is considered a best practice when analyzing data from a designed experiment for several reasons. The JMP design platforms (e.g., Custom Design) add the Coding column property to the continuous factor data columns when you click Make Table. The Fit Least Squares platform recognizes this column property and internally applies the transformation.
Interpretation:
Without coding, the parameter estimates depend on the scale (i.e., measurement units). It is difficult to answer questions such as, "Which factor is the most important?" just by examining the estimates. On the other hand, coded factor levels lead to scale-invariant estimates. They still represent the change in the response for a one unit change in the factor, but now that is half the factor range for all factors. (For this reason, the estimate using coded factor levels are sometimes referred to as 'half effects.') Also, the intercept is usually necessary for modeling but meaningless. With coding, the intercept is always now the mean response at the origin of your design space.
Power:
We always want estimates with the smallest standard error, regardless of the purpose of the experiment (e.g., screening versus optimization). The design determines the correlation among the estimates. Uncorrelated estimates will have the smallest standard error. Correlation will inflate the variation of the estimates and, therefore, their standard errors. Perfectly correlated errors have infinite variance and are therefore inseparable. The effects represented by these parameters are confounded. Coding the factor levels minimizes the correlation among the estimates.
Stability:
Model hierarchy is related to coding. We strongly recommend that you maintain model hierarchy when you add or remove terms from the model. One reason is that the model will be unstable if you later change (transform) variables, such as reversing the coding transformation. Using the Simplify function in the formula editor as suggested by @HadleyMyers produces a different model (some terms vanish, new terms appear) if you do not maintain the hierarchy when selecting your model.