John,
We do have (have had) equivalent functionality in SolidWorks. In an assembly we have mate folders underneath each component. If you click on the mate for that component, it highlights the mates graphically in the SW Window. Additionally, with SW 2008, we have MateXpert which allows you to diagnosis the problem and suppress, delete, reorder to resolve the mate condition. Thirdly, there are the Parent/child Dialog for part features. Granted, we can always do a better job and we are working to do better. The main distinction between us and WildFire is that they show two separated views of the mate/reference etc. for comparison's sake. Perhaps the blessing (and the curse) of Wildfire assemblies is that they are history based (this was true in WF2, I don't know about WF4)
- that is, you build WF assemblies like you build WF parts or SW parts. That, perhaps, make diagnosing them easier than SW. The big drawback (the curse), of course, is that you can not see your other child component in context of editing a parent mate - as well as severally limit dynamic motion capability etc. That was always a real problem I experience when using Pro. Like I said, I don't know if that is still true, they might have freed up that limitation.
Regards
Mark