I'm not sure I see the need for the complexity. If it's under software control, ie. the gate is driven by the MCU, then it's your software that needs to drive the gate pin high 'by default', not the hardware.
It gets a bit more complicated if you want several different signals to all be able to control the FET in some way. You could, for example, put a pull-up resistor between the gate and the positive supply, and then connect a diode between the gate and each signal which needs to be able to pull the gate low. With this arrangement, the gate is high 'by default', but if any of the drive signals are low then the gate will be pulled to within a diode drop of ground. Use a Schottky diode and the FET is virtually guaranteed to be fully off.