How to avoid short circuit when connecting a microcontroller and device using I2C bus?
The last sentence in the O.P. should be:


  Then for a few uS you would set the MCU output to high-Z be outputting a logic high, before the MCU executed the next instruction to turn the pin to LOW.


I2C is an open drain bus with pull up resistors.  Master and slaves can only pull the lines low.  Neither master nor slave drive the I2C lines (SDA and SCL) up.  In other words,  master and slave can only sink current from the I2C lines, but they can's source current.  Master and slaves can only put outputs to high-Z state, and the resistors can pull the lines up.

The values of pull-up resistors are somewhere between 1.5 kΩ and 10 kΩ depending on the logic voltage levels, bus speed, bus capacitance.  When the bus is driven low, the resistors limit the current, so there is no hard short.

(source)

This is detailed in the I2C specification (UM10204).   Anyone working with the I2C bus should at least skim through it.