Here are my thoughts:
1. I'm not sure what you mean by other tools? There are a number of methods to build/analyze models. Typically models are analyzed using the fit model platform:
https://www.jmp.com/support/help/en/17.1/?os=mac&source=application#page/jmp/model-specification.sht...
I personally like to visualize interactions, so interaction plots are quite useful.
2. How JMP handles the estimation of interaction effects is dependent on the type of data (e.g., nominal, ordinal, continuous) and how the data was acquired. Interactions between variables are commonly coded as the product of two independent variables in statistical analysis. This practice is based on the concept of interaction effects, which refers to the combined effect of two or more variables on an outcome. When the effect of a factor depends on another factor, this is an interaction. For continuous variables in an experiment, the levels are coded equidistant centered on zero (e.g., -1, 1 for 2-level factors). The coding "normalizes" the coefficients to make analysis easier. If you code your variables, then, indeed the interaction of A*B is the product of the main effects A and B:
A B A*B
-1 -1 1
1 -1 -1
-1 1 -1
1 1 1
"All models are wrong, some are useful" G.E.P. Box