If that's what it takes to get your vehicle to pass emissions, then your vehicle needed those items to be repaired in order to run correctly. It's called maintenance. Your vehicle isn't being asked to pass anything stricter than it did when it was new, the law makes sure that your vehicle is maintained properly so it's not polluting any worse than what the factory designed into it from the start.

For the record, I hate having to get my vehicles through emissions. It's often a stupid struggle to figure out what the he** is wrong, and often results in having to take it in to a shop for diagnosis beyond my capabilities. It's just part of the responsibility of owning a vehicle.