I'd love to Dokkan awakan him! My only question is, if I need to rewind him to unlock some paths, do the awakening medals get refunded? or would I need to collect them again?

Yep they get refunded. Reverse dokkaning keeps everything the same and is worry free. Also if you reverse dokkan him, the game won't let you awaken him with medals again since it is already dokkan awakened. So just go back to hidden potential system and awaken him for free again.

I was so scared to do my first REVERSE... at the time I could barely beat the events haha and didn't want to grind the medals again!

I had to reverse the new vegeta, but now I know lol. Got him Dokkan awakened, SA lvl 6.

I finally did it! They reset the events literally right after I got my last medals lol