Gottlieb's report will help the defense if this debacle ever goes to trial because of its internal inconsistencies, contradictions, lateness and convenient and easily discredited explanations (as you point out, the report is consistent with incorrect media reports, not actual records).
Actually, my first reaction when reading the NYT story is that Nifong or someone in his office wrote it for Gottlieb. Only a lawyer could produce a 33 page typewritten report, based upon 3 pages of handwritten reports, that attempts to plug every hole in a legal case and sounds like a legal brief. Police reports are factual, and Gottlieb's is very argumentative.
I still think the defense should demand all copies of the report file and access to the machine(s) on which Gottlieb typed this document. Is this possible? Can they impugn the basis of a police report by showing that it was fabricated. For example, if the file was clean, i.e., no edits, no earlier versions, no multiple modifications and none were visible on the computer, etc., then there is is a strong argument that this report was totally fabricated.