For some reason (inertia? not-broken-don't-fix?) I still use the same portable version of SpaceMonger I was first introduced to via some computer magazine bundle-in CD of utilities decades ago.
That's one; I've used that several others over the years, including gb4e and Covington packages. But yes, expex is probably the best now.
Not quite relevant, but we actually composed our grammars in a variant of DocBook XML, then converted them automagically to XeLaTeX for typesetting. Andy Black has a similar toolset that starts with his own document-oriented XML and converts this to XeLaTeX. I stole (with his permission) the code to convert XML interlinear into a LaTeX interlinear format.
It would make sense for Verizon to license the technology to other carriers.
1) The more widespread the technology is, the more advertisers will be aware of it and will seek it. This means more revenue for Verizon (bigger market for this product).
2) If all carriers do it, then people won't have an incentive to switch from Verizon.